r THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA FIRST SERIES PiihUshed by GEORGE BAKEUE, PhiLadeiphiay. I I / ' " ^ ' -r-- THE Ly Art Treasures OF AMERICA BEING THE CHOICEST WORKS OF ART IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS OF NORTH AMERICA EDITED BY EDWARD STR A HAN * /fP/ PHILADELPHIA GEBBIE & BARRIE Publishers AI.L RIGHTS RESERVED THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA t.--. i I f I /I iff.- fUt. GKBBIK 8c BARRIK ) / THE Corcoran Gallery, Washington. front of the War Department in Washington, and likewise nearly opposite the White House, we see a conspicuous building, new- looking, though sober in color. This is the edifice destined to be sung by all the muses of history as the first Gallery built and endowed and dedicated to a com- munity by an American. The Corcoran Gallery of Art is placed in one of the best situations in Washington, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventeenth Street, and is at present one hundred and six feet by one hundred and twenty-five feet in dimen- sions. Arrangements for enlarging the site are actively progressing, and may be considered certain to succeed, though just now impeded by a repetition of the story of the miller who refused to sell o Frederick the Great the windmill that was an eyesore from ians Souci ; the owner of a necessary plot holds out for a nonstrous price. Looking up at the fagade as we are about o enter, we observe three miniature pavilions rather crushed ogether, a mansard at each corner and a square dome in the VENUS VICTRIX. CAST, AFTEK THORWALDSEN. middle ; a renaissance motif in red brick, dressed out with brown-stone; rusticated ground floor, serving as base to a Louvre-like second-story, where couples of pillars are inter- rupted by niches, with Ezekiel’s statues of Phidias, Raphael, etc. As caps to the pillars, there are tufts of leaves, as different from the classical acanthus as from the Gothic scroll- work ; the capitals represent Indian corn. In the middle the monogram of the modern Maecenas — Mr. William W. Cor- coran. What a proud signature, and what a noble inscription on a page of architecture ! Alone of all the wealthy sovereigns of this country, Mr. Corcoran imagined the consecration of his great wealth to Art. First of all our innumerable connoisseurs and art-patrons, it occurred to him to erect and endow a monu- ment of beneficence, for which all generations of art-lovers shall call him blessed. And, what is the most appropriate of coincidences, this great example is set in Washington, the American capital, in a national sense the most representative of our cities. All encouragement of cliques and clanships is rebuked by this broadly American initiative. Considering what a thoroughfare Washington is, and what kind of a thorough- fare ; considering that by its political station alone it compels the attendance, at some time in his life, of every citizen of the 3 4 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. % United States, Yankee or Hoosier, cultured or rude, black, white, or red, and that the refined man who needs art-examples the least is drawn to the shadow of this edifice with the un- couth man who needs them most, we are particularly well satisfied that this initiative was taken in the Capital. The right place for the first rich, well-endowed, truly serviceable art-gal- lery and school is Washington. Here a humble stand can be taken and some of the common-places of art-history can be admitted among the specimens, since the beneficiaries are to be drawn from all the immense populace between the two oceans ; and the cultivated person who wishes a reference to correct some momentary forgetfulness is not ashamed to enter the hall of antiques, because the presence of rustic visitors, presumably unacquainted with the Elgin Marbles and Venus of Milo, makes the collection of those old stand-byes appro- priate. Gracious should be the dreams of the man who had the wit and invention and heart to imagine this superb institution, and to set it in the right place ! The Louvres, and National Galleries, and Vaticans of Europe were built by kings and pontiffs, and for their maintenance were taxed the resources of toiling nations. This already splendid museum was built and filled by an individual, in a simple burst of genial goodness. The banker’s pocket was unbuttoned by a kindly impulse, and out jumped this gift at a leap! School, and collection, and shrine — the educational gift, the gift of a treasure, and the gift of a shelter, — all came out together, a single conception, ex- ecuted without a pause in a trifle of time. The name of Mr. Corcoran, which we by no means wish to varnish with unsought and unwelcome flattery, is on the most prosaic construction fit to go down with those of Mr. Vernon, who presented his picture-collection to England, and may be said to have founded the National Gallery ; and with those of Angerstein, and Sheepshanks, and Sir George Beaumont, who made equally generous dedications of their private hoards of pictures. The building of Mr. Corcoran’s museum was begun in 1859, by James Renwick, a New York architect. It was opened with a ball (after a slight interruption and renewal of work for which the civil war was answerable) on Washington's birthday, 1871, — the founder assuming all expenses of the festival and handing over the receipts intact to the Washington Monument Association — and filled with substantially the pre- sent contents in 1874. There are about one hundred and sixty-five paintings at present in the collection, besides the statuary and objects of virtu. We now begin our notice of the works of art, premising that when in this and future portions of our text we give dimensions we state the breadth first of the pictures which we illustrate, without always guaranteeing rigidity of measurement, but affording a sufficient guide for those of the public who may desire to command the more material way of estimating a canvas’ importance. The “ Portrait of William W. Corcoran” (70 x 98 inches), founder of the institution, is seen in the main gallery of paint- ings. It was executed in 1867 by Charles L. Elliott (1812- 1868) of New York. A glance shows that thirteen years ago, at the time of its execution, years and thought had already whitened the locks of the original ; the face, in the interval, has scarcely changed ; although older than the century, Mr. Corcoran yet retains the brightness of eye and decision of manner indicated in the likeness, which therefore still repre- sents adequately the creator of that noble institution from which we take our start for a long journey through American galleries. Whether in Canada, California, or New England, we shall still keep our thoughts under the Kgis of this patron figure, never forgetting that while other collectors have shown their taste, he has shown taste incorporated amongst the moral virtues by beneficence. We experience a peculiar pleasure and sense of fitness in opening our work with this likeness of an art-benefactor, and placing under the patronage of so good an example a publication intended to spread art- knowledge over the land. ” Charlotte Corday in Prison” (34x42 inches), by Charles Louis Muller of Paris, represents the murderess-heroine, who stabbed Marat in his bath, among the earlier convulsions of the French Revolution, in 1793. The type chosen conforms to the portraits of Mile, de Corday, of which several exist in the prints of the time, and represents even the striped dress she wore, with its postillion cut. The composition, like Raphael’s “ De- liverance of Peter,” in the Vatican, has for its first plan or foreground an interruption of dark bars, behind which the focus of the picture is placed, with an effect that it is never possible to make quite satisfactory, though the railing assists the moral MOUNT CORCORAN, SIERRA NEVADA. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING EY A. BIEKSTADT. impression. Checkered with these obstinate bars, we see the pale, aristocratic face of Mademoiselle de Corday, the relative of Corneille, whose words she quoted in her last hours — ” The crime makes the shame, and not the scaffold.” In the close, damp chamber of the Conciergerie, as if imprisoned in a sultry mountain, the delicate captive dreams out the long, hot days of July, remembering her elegant home with her aunt Bretteville, her lineage of spotless honor and plain rural dignity, and the duty she imagined herself called to, of slaying the slayer of her friends, the Girondists. One hand clasps with its taper fingers the coarse iron bars ; the other, braced upon the prison wall, supports her delicate head, with its Norman cap decorated with the revolutionary tri-color. “Mount Corcoran” (96 x 60 inches), by Albert Bierstadt, occupies an end of the principal gallery, and is a favorite sub- GRAVURE GOUPII. a. CO. C.L. MULLER, PIUX- IN PRISON, CORD AY CHARLOTTE GE.BB1E & BARKIE. 5 THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. ject of painter-copyists. We have interrupted with the account of a striking French picture our descriptions of two American works of prominence, the portrait and the landscape. The latter is probably the most popular delineation of scenery in the gallery. The overland traveler to California crosses two vast mountain chains, the Rocky and the Nevada. The last-named is far more impressive, realizing for the first time to an American tourist his dreams of true Alpine grandeur. Among the con- fused infinity of gigantic peaks, of which but a trifling propor- tion are known and named, Mr. Bienstadt, who has several times been allowed the privilege of giving names to crests of the Nevada range, selected one to be called after Mr. Corcoran ; and it is to be hoped this appellation, immortalized on its plinth of eternal snow, will be fixed and perpetuated in the govern- ment surveys. The reader must in fancy expand our sketch, taken on the reduced scale which our space allows, to the pro- pains to travel to ; but it is a visit paid with half-opened eyes, excluding the real refinements of landscape delight. “ The Beach at Scheveningen, Holland,” (54 x 27 inches), is a lively and capable painting, by F. H. Kaemmerer, a young Hollander, who came to Paris and entered the atelier of Gerome some ten years ago. It was executed in 1874. People in Europe sit out on the sea-beach to an extent they cannot be persuaded to try in this country, and here we have the belles and dandies from all Dutchland, as well as those from France and Britain, flattened out in the glare, in a point blank volley of blinding sunbeams which reduces everything to a chalky stare of light. The freshest flounces and modes of 1874 are displayed on the hired garden-chairs. The priest in broad hat and bands, feeling himself in a state of highest charity with all creation, (and with his aristocratic beautiful parishioner espe- cially,) twirls his thumbs and leans over with that expression COUNT EBERHARDT OF WIRTEMBERG ; THE WEEPER. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ARY SCHEFFER. . portions of a painting eight feet wide. Mr. Bierstadt was born at Diisseldorf, Germany, in 1828, but came to this country in his second year, going back to Diisseldorf at the period of adolescence for his art education, and returning hither in 1857. His style is completely European, reminding us of Lessing and Calame. He and Church represent the taste for panoramic art in this country, now gone entirely out of fashion among the lovers of refinement in technic. It is true that the best method of representing quality has never been exhibited by painters of this expansive style. But it is only fair to remind ourselves that they secure for us memoranda of the really great and stupendous scenes of nature, which the representatives of quality let alone. The subtler truths of air and light are to be supplied by the artistic spectator from what he remembers of nature. Mr. Bierstadt may be considered as a convenience, enabling us to pay a visit to a region we would not take the of delicate benevolence which tolerates even lightness, and which is more akin to worldliness than any other virtue the good man can select out of his repertory of sacred graces. A beautiful invalid reclines languidly, her feet supported on a stool ; a fair fashionable girl bends over a brown fisher-maiden who offers shells for sale. City children expose their pale legs to the attack of the breakers. The whole picture is intense with light, — a symphony of blonde tones. At the right I recog- nize my fellow-pupil at Gerome’s, Frederick Henry Kaemmerer, in a smart suit of light flannel and very noble hat, caressing a cane, and taking in the whole scene with a creator’s eye — the scene which but for him would have remained as embryotic as that year’s fashion-plates. The “Weeper,” or “ Larmoyeur,” (height 65 inches), by Ary Scheffer, is a picture that in replica adorns four different museums, two of them American. One representation is to be 6 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. found at the Boston Athenaeum, another is the present example, while a third was selected by the French government for the national collection of the Luxembourg Gallery. Recollecting all three individually, I cannot decide that the Corcoran speci- men is inferior to either of the others in depth of pathos and tragedy. Another copy is in the Museum at Rotterdam. Scheffer’s faulty color is here disguised by the fact that the tone of the composition is appropriately black, and that the prin- cipal face is that of a corpse. We see the interior of a tent, a life-sized youth in full armor, composed in his last sleep, a wretched father bending over with clasped hands, the difficult tears forcing themselves from his aged eyes. Ulrich of Eber- hait had lost the battle of Reutlingen, as Schiller’s ballad relates, and when he sought his father at the repast, the stout old Count silently cut the table-cloth between them as a re- proach. Stung by the sarcasm, the boy rushed into the next fight, and gained the battle of Dofifingen, but was slain in the action. “And while, in our camp, we are celebrating our vic- tory, what is our old Count doing ? says Schiller s rhyme. “Alone in his tent, before the dead body of his son, he weeps.” Scheffer was a Dutch artist of Dordrecht (1795-1858) who lived in Paris and at Nice, and cast his artistic lot with the French painters. It is certain that Gallic criticism, occupied with setting his rival, Delaroche, on a pedestal, has been inhospitable to Scheffer; insisting principally on his effeminate laxity of draw- ing and inadequate color, it has not penetrated his immeas- urable superiority to Delaroche in sentiment, poetry and re- ligious feeling. The painter of “ Christ the Consoler, and of “ Francesca di Rimini” has no need of an apologist. To show the extent of vinegarish Bohemian intolerance directed against the painter in his lifetime, we may cite the morbid poet Baudelaire. This genius, so discerning in his criticism when the subject came properly in his limited purview, could see no merit in a style of art which aimed to show the spirit of mys- ticism—the sentiment, for instance, of St. Augustine reciting, of his mother’s teachings, “ We searched together what might be that eternal life which the eye has not seen, which the ear has not heard, and whither the heart of man has not reached. When Scheffer essays to reduce this passage to painting, Bau- delaire shouts coarsely : “ It is the height of absurdity. I seem to see a dancer executing a pas of mathematics ! ’ “ Scheffer, he says again, “ makes a Christ like a Faust and a Faust like a Christ.” In our indignant protest against this kind of school- boy uproar from the mob of the romantiqiies, we must remember on the side of the critics that our ideas of Scheffer in this country are mostly enhanced from the plates, executed with penetrating, delicate and refining art by the most exquisite of French engravers. We are not, though, without some fair examples of Scheffer’s painting in this country. Mr. Charles C. Perkins, of Boston, owns his canvas of “ Dante and Beatrice;” a New York owner has his “ Mirabeau in the Convention.” In Washington, besides the “Weeper,” there is the portrait of Lafayette from his brush, in the House of Representatives, and also a likeness of Commodore Morris, painted in 1826. No contemporary portraitist was so highly esteemed as Ary Schef- fer. on account of his intense insight into his sitter’s character ; his head of Dickens, painted shortly before his death, was con- sidered a masterpiece. “The Vestal Tuccia” (63 x 54 inches), by Hector Le Roux, of Paris, represents a Roman miracle of the pagan age. Va- lerius Maximus, who dedicated to Tiberius his annals of Roman gestes and acts of virtue, recounts how this priestess of Vesta justified her challenged purity by carrying water in a sieve from the Tiber to the temple of her goddess. “ Powerful divinity,” she prayed, “ if I have always approached thy altars pure-handed, grant me that I may fill this sieve with the waters of Tiber and carry it even into thy temple.” In a beautiful calm landscape, without pomp of witnesses, but only w’atched by a group of Vestals and by the humble fisher-boy of the Tiber banks, she lifts the brimming vessel with a lofty gesture of exultation, so that the light streams through the lenses formed by the gathered water pausing in the apertures of the sieve. This is one of the most correct and luminous pictures, with the tertderest landscape, executed by the painter of the Luxembourg canvas of the “ Columbarium.” No formal trial. PRINCIPAL FIGURE FROM “THE VESTAL TUCCIA.” BY HECTOK LE KOUX.— FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY THE ARTIST, no court of pontifex and flamens, is arranged around the ex- ulting maiden ; the two or three witnesses chosen from among her .officiating companions, the humble vagabond child of the Roman streets, are enough to justify her fair fame, and the loneliness of dawn broods in peace and uncontaminated fresh- ness over her triumph. More than one replica of his picture has been painted by the artist for private American galleries ; and he thought so well of his effort as to select it for ex- hibition in the great Paris World’s Fair of 1878. f FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY F. H. KAEMMEREB, IN THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. 7 By Kdouard Detaille the painter who constitutes himself a true successor of Meissonier a little before the succession is vacant there is a fine oil-picture, and an admirable water- color. “ Le Raiment qui Passe” (50 x 50 inches), painted in 1875, ranks with his two or three greatest paintings— with the ‘‘Salut aux blesses” and “Nos vainqueurs,” the first of which is owned by Mr. S. A. Hawk, of New York, and the second in Russia. Detaille used to hire a cab by the hour, imprison himself in it, and sketch for this picture the crowds of the bou- levard in the neighborhood of the Porte St. Martin. The real Paris mud, especially — thick, gluey, yellow and all-pervading — is hit off better by the palette-knife work of this picture than in any other that can be pointed out. We see the pomp, pride and circumstance of a marching regiment, having its comple- ment in the loyal admiration of a Paris crowd, diverted for the moment from the multifarious occupations of a busy thorough- fare. The turkey-cock strut of the gigantic drum-major leads the procession, heading his drum-corps, behind which the soldiers in line come forward to the spectator, emerging out of the mystery of the chilly and opaque fog. In advance tramp the street Arabs, the apprentices, the workmen, while on the SCENE AT FONTAINEBLEAU— COSTUME OF LOUIS XI. PAC-SIMILE OP SKETCH BY F. D. BRISCOE. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY P. C. COMTE. sidewalks pause women carrying children, pursy citizens, and well-dressed promenaders. A convoy of omnibuses with pas- sengers grumbling at the delay, accompanies the parade. The tall forms of the two neighboring arches, St. Martin and St. Denis, with their sculptures of the militarj^ glories of Louis XIV in the Palatinate, form a consolation for these modern troops. Detaille’s crowded and important water-color is the “French Cuirassiers bringing in Bavarian Prisoners,” (22 x 17 inches), executed in the same year of 1875. It shows one of the few encounters where the French got an advantage in the late war with the Prussians, a scene after the battle of Orleans. A fine group of stolid, innocent-looking Bavarians, brave, utterly unconcerned and at home, is surrounded by the more intellectual types of the French soldiers, and the aristocratic visages of officers. In the foreground is an elaborately-finished group of a mounted cuirassier and his horse, who with his animal stood for days in the painter’s yard while the aquarelle was executed; but why speak of the finish of any particular figure, when the facets of every miniature visage throughout the picture are cut like those of a gem ? “A Scene at Fontainebleau” (31 x 21 inches), by Pierre Charles Comte, of Fontainebleau and Paris, takes us back to the time when the court of Louis XI made the Fontainebleau chateau a favorite resort, away from the civic turbulence of Paris. We behold a revelation of a court-beauty of the time, attended by a favorite levrier, trailing her silken robes through the royal park. Victor Hugo introduces such figures, amiable subjects of gouty Louis, into his romance of “ Notre Dame,” and in this picture we may see how those fair patricians, long-named and long-trained, dressed and looked — Fleur-de-Lys de Gond- laurier, Diane de Christeuil, Amelotte de Montmichel, or Co- lombo de Gaillefontaine. This picture, too, was painted in 1874. “Shakespeare and his Contemporaries” (68 x 53 inches), by the eminent Scotch artist John Faed, is one of the most successful groups known in its difficult kind. The artist’s bro- ther, Thomas, has painted an almost equally celebrated histo- rical restoration, “Sir Walter Scott and his Friends.” The en- graving of the “ Shakespeare” picture, a capital plate, which has made it a household word in many and many a home, is by another brother, James Faed, and is dedicated to Mr. Corcoran as the owner of the canvas. The insurmountable trouble in arranging such a group of portraits is in this paradox, that from the point of view of historical interest every figure should be equally in focus, equally lighted, and equally important. In a pictorial view, the different personages should be in shadow or in obscurity, distant or viewed from behind, according to the accidental arrangements of nature. Mr. John Faed. has dissimulated his hardships with plenty of skill, and he has created an ideal of Shakespeare which, though possibly a little self-conscious and of more royal demeanor than would have been probable in the presence of Raleigh and Southampton, is still noticeably quiet and intellectual. The artist imagines a symposium at the Mermaid Tavern in Friday-street, where there was a club of genial spirits, to which resorted Shakes- peare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Donne, and many others whose names we still respect, and who may have been met upon occasion by Southampton, Dorset, and the courtiers. Sylvester. Camden. Dorset. Raleigh. Southampton. Donne. Bacon. Daniel. Fletcher. B. Jonson. Selden. Beaumont. Shakespeare. Cotton. Dekker. The above arrangement of names maybe readily compared with our plate, and serve as a key. Standing at the extreme left, is “silver-tongued Sylvester,” translator of Du Bartas, and 8 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. assistant of King James in the Counterblast to Tobacco; then Camden the traveler, author of Britannia; then the Earl of Dorset, Lord High Treasurer of England, author of Gorbo- duc, and part author of the Mirror for Magistrates. Beneath these three, in a sitting trio, from the left, the learned Selden, whose Table-Talk Dr. Johnson said was “better than any of the French;” then Beaumont, talking to Selden, and then Beaumont’s literary partner, Fletcher ; next, in a hat such as he wears on his monument. Lord Bacon ; next, Ben Jonson, with both elbows on the table; above him, half-glimpsed, “the well-languaged Daniel;” then Donne, whose sermons Izaac Walton describes so vividly ; beneath the head of Donne, that of Shakespeare ; then come two standing figures ; he with the hat is Sir Walter Raleigh, the other Shakespeare’s friend. Lord Southampton, to whom Venus and Adonis was dedicated; the sitting figure below is Cotton, founder of the Cottonian Library, and the sardonic laugher at the extreme right is Dekker, dramatist, and Ben Jonson’s satirist, who left that portrait of the latter which describes his “ face punched full of eyelet-holes.” Jonson wrote the lines which best describes Faed’s painting, — “ What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtle flame As if that every one, from whom they came, Had put his whole wit in a jest.” “ Fun and Fright” (42 x 30 inches), by Gaetano Chierici, of .Milan, was executed in the same year, represents a domestic reign of terror, caused by the Italian bad little boy, who strews FUN AND FRIGHT. FAC -SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY H. T. CARISS, FROM THE ORIGINAL BY GAETANO CHIERICI. his victims over the domestic stage in monarchical Italy as in free America. His helpless prey is here a pretty little sister, and the horrid lad has frightened her away from her meal of maccheroni with a mask. The hapless fair has tumbled from her throne at the kitchen-table, and is reduced to seek an offensive and defensive alliance with the maternal powers. Maternal vengeance will probably follow, as we gather from 1 the matron’s uplifted eyes and wooden spoon. It is noted for the visitor’s information, in the budget' of cicerone-lore dis- tributed to the Washington visitor, that Chierici rose from a very humble origin, that the kitchen and its contents so fondly here elaborated are painted from the stuva in which he lived when an indigent artist fighting with poverty, that the pretty little girl and the bad little boy are his own children, and the cook a poor relation of the now courted, flattered painter. In examining “ The Edict of William the Testy” (67 x 43 inches), by George H. Boughton, we are apt to wonder how so much tobacco-smoking can be kept up, since the painter has neglected to introduce tobacco-jar, or box, or pouch — aught by which the siege might be maintained. It is a war sustained by magic means, the ammunition being supplied celestially, so far as appears, for we must count as nothing the screw of snuff or Virginia leaf in a little paper at the left. If the powder and ball are lacking, however, the firearms are well distributed, for a lank young ne’er-do-weel advances from the rear, brandishing a sheaf of long-range pipes with slender stems. It is time to say that the picture represents one of Geoffrey Crayon’s veracious scenes from the history of New York. William the Testy, the honest Dutch governor of the province, has issued his edict prohibiting the smoking of tobacco throughout New Nether- lands. “ The immediate effect of it was a popular commotion. A vast multitude armed with pipes and tobacco-boxes and an immense supply of ammunition,” (see how the plain tale .shall set the painter down!) “sat themselves before the Governor’s house and fell to smoking with tremendous violence. The testy William issued forth like a wrathful spider, demanding the reason of this lawless fumigation. The sturdy rioters replied by lolling back in their seats, and puffing away with redoubled fury.” I am always nervous when I approach one of Boughton’s canvases presumed to be humorous. The sweet blonde tone, the delicious, languid, faded-out colors in the most “ cultured” style of William Morris, the silvery tissue of the whole picture shining across the room from afar, the chromatic refinement suggesting midsummer night’s dreams, the general troubadour style of the painter, evident from the utmost dis- tance, seem competent indeed for flights of pictorial sonneteer- ing, but hardly for the frank naked laughter of Rabelais. Here, however, as again with “ Ichabod Crane,” the painter is agree- ably found shaking with a sly, silent, silver laughter, entre chair et cuir, which has its own value among the styles of comedy. The irascible Governor, darting out upon the pretty Dutch stoep of the house, is galvanic and animated; no jack-in-the-box springs out with better simulated suddenness of motion; a moment ago you would insist he was not in the picture. His wife, acidulous, correct, irreconcilable, is even better. The baggy-breeched crowd is good, too, — invulnerable, stolid, and easy in mind : on their part the siege may endure forever. Variety is secured by the introduction of two Puritans, in peaked hats, from away in Cotton Mather’s colony ; of some sonsy Dutch maidens in Holland caps ; and by the identification of two heroes, Antony von Corlaer, in uniform of scarlet, as be- fits the doughty trumpeter, and Brinkerhoff, leader of the Clam and Onion War with the Yankees. Rings of tobacco-smoke 1 form a perfect orrery in the upper canvas ; and in this suffusion of pale azure the colorist makes his account. All told, the artist manages to fasten a laugh, or at least a genial smile, among the argentine refinements of his fan-painting manner. THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. EDICATING his art to the antique, “A Family of Satyrs,” (86 X 78 in- ch es), by Louis Priou pupil of Cabanel, is the work of a painter who has made the revival o f INITIAL BY F. EHRMANN. the mythi- cal sylvan deities a specialty. By taking up this class of subjects he secures the privilege of studying the nude without blame, and of mixing academic painting with a pretty sentiment of gaiety and Bohemianism. He had a similar subject at the Phila- delphia Centennial, but without the female figure occupying the foreground of the present canvas. The innocent gaiety of the woods, the primitive sentiment of music, the shyness and wildness and elusive character of sylvan life, are embodied in the fancy of the existence of satyrs. M. Priou draws out his robust torsos and vigorous arms and goat-eared heads with the anatomical precision of sculpture ; a tendency to opaque shadow and black outline is his besetting temptation. “The Wail of the Lost Dogs” (48x58 inches), by O. von Thoren, was painted in 1873 for the Vienna Exhibition, where it elicited many admiring remarks. In the evening of an inclement day a couple of dogs have lost the track, and exhibit their respective emotions at this disaster in different ways, one showing active distress and the other a kind of silent, and certainly dogged, resignation. The “ Cri au Perdu” is doubtless a German hunting scene, though the expression is French. For the best account of French hunting cries and phrases, we might refer the reader to a charming little book, A Week in a French Country House, by Adelaide Kemble, a lady whom there is a certain appropriateness in naming in the city of Washington, since she was the mother-in-law of one of our Washington princesses. “ The Adoration of the Shepherds,” (60 x 104 inches), of Raphael Mengs, (1728-1779), is a work by a master histori- cally important, who corresponds with David and West in the effort to revive classical painting at the close of the last cen- tury. The present subject shows reminiscences of Correggio in its handling of light and grouping. A kind of imitation of boldness and strength is seen throughout the picture, notably in the prostrate personage in front. But Mengs’ effort to revive art by studying in picture galleries and from the antique, instead of opening his eyes and copying living models as he saw them, was a frustrate endeavor. He has probably less vitality in him than either of his contemporaries. West or David, and the oblivion into which he plunges is more hope- less. Nevertheless, the present canvas has had a career which ‘ 9 is full of interest, and has received the shadow of events that have shaken Europe. Joseph Bonaparte, when pushed by his brother upon the throne of Spain, found the memory of Mengs still green in the more polished circles of Madrid, the painter having enjoyed high favor there under the penultimate king, Charles IV. He was just the kind of frigid, classical bore to be madly loved by a monarch who plumed himself on “ re- viving the arts.” When King Joseph, dropping his sceptre and grasping his umbrella, exchanged the banks of the Manzanares for those of the Delaware, and Madrid for Bordentown, he selected some of the pictures of highest repute among the royal treasure, among others this specimen of Mengs and the two fine Joseph Vernets of the Philadelphia Academy. Thus is accounted for the presence in America of this “Adoration,” once esteemed as precious as a Raphael. Mengs was the son of the court-painter to the muscular August the Strong of Poland; he studied under his father, then went to Rome and acquired his desperate classicality. Here Benjamin West, on his boyish travels, saw Mengs and learned to worship him. Of more importance to the German Raphael was the credulity of Winckelman, which soon introduced him to his learned patron Cardinal Albani. From this timely countenance pro- ceeded the order to paint that ceiling of the Villa Albani which passes as his masterpiece, and represents Parnassus, THE WAIL OF THE LOST DOGS. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL BY O. VON THOREN. with Apollo and the Muses. Passing to Spain, with prodigious Roman recommendations, Mengs found a king just ready to take him up— a patron Mscenas badly in want of a prodigy. The painter remained in the highest favor till his death, and the king even continued his protection to the family bereaved 10 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. by that ^event. Joseph Bonaparte religiously believed in Mengs, treating as naught the puzzling transit of Goya across Spanish art, and, on his hasty retirement for Switzerland and New Jersey, grasped and carried off with him this consider- able canvas among the rest. “ The Drought in Egypt” (87 x 108 inches), is a life-size group by Jean Portaels, of Brussels, a pupil of Paul Delaroche — a recent work, too, having been painted in 1873. It is an example of the old balanced academic style which proceeded out of the Delaroche studio, and which seems especially to maintain its inheritance in Belgium. In France, on the con- Vilvorde in 1818, studied under Navez as well as Delaroche, received the prize of Rome at Paris in 1842, and wears with decorous pride a number of orders of dignity, such as the Crown of Oak of Holland and the Cross of Francis Joseph of Austria, besides his Belgian honors. “The Heir Presumptive” (72 x 42 inches), is one of the largest canvases of Mr. George H. Boughton, whose “William the Testy” is described on page 8. It shows the Anglo- American painter in his peculiar placid dignity, a thorough master of pastoral landscape enlivened with pure stately human types. A slender and aristocratic little lad is solemnly THE DROUGHT IN EGYPT. FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. PORTAELS. trary, the most classical of the Delaroche disciples are con- strained to lean this way or that, whether in the direction of archaeology or of realism. There is little effort here to give a true transcript from the life of Egypt at some period of low water in the Nile — the gaunt wretchedness of the fellahs, the withering palm-orchards, the shadouf with empty buckets, the companionship in misery of rich and poor. This is a sculp- ture-like group of Greek-featured personages, exhibiting their anguish in attitudes of solemn grace. It is, in a certain aspect, noble and classic in feeling. It recalls, with a solem- nity of impression divested of entanglement with any divert- ing kind of realism, the biblical curse, under which the land of Mizraim still withers, — ■“ He hath wrought His sign in Egypt and hath turned their rivers into blood, and their floods, that they could not drink.” Jean Portaels was born at walked through the park by his governess. Perhaps it is New, perhaps it is Old England, for the patrician type seems to savor about equally of Fanny Burney or of Hawthorne. If this little fellow is one of the early Pyncheons, and the scene is Massachusetts, his distinguished little manners and his curly little dog will not save his broad acres to his noble race, for the epoch is just before ’76, and the Revolution is coming, and feudalism is going to be bombarded out of the land, and entails will become illegal, and these fair pleasance grounds will be cut up among a hundred avaricious inheritors. Meantime, the gentle little fellow stalks with the gait of Louis the Fouteenth among the trunks of the autumnal beeches. The governess treats him with the sublimity and deference of her kind, the humble gardener off-caps to him, and the negro groom, inimitably pompous, struts in livery with his ^ V,*. ..vV' ‘V-i. ;■ ► r v-^‘ r dki< 3UKi aristoc: .. FEOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY HENRI MOTTE, IN THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON, t THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. young massa’s pony. The canvas was painted in London in 1873, and its first owner is the Corcoran Gallery; the patron- age of the institution could not be better bestowed than in taking this large serious picture, and the above-described large humorous picture, from the studio of Mr. Boughton. THE HEIR PRESUMPTIVE. FAC-SIMILE OF SKETCH BY H. T. CARISS, FROM THE ORIGINAL BY G. H. BOUGHTON. He is a painter whose worthy mission it is to secure Euro- pean recognition of an art distinctively American. “ The Trojan Horse” (60 x 39 inches), by Henri Paul Motte, is a curious and interesting effort to reconstruct his- tory, or, if you will, legend. He is a young pupil of Gerome, and carries on the archaeological studies of that master in the same spirit, and with a very loyal discipleship of style. The endeavor to rebuild an archaic Troy and fill it with archaic Trojans and archaic Greeks would satisfy Schliemann himself. Here are the ramparts of a capital of Asia Minor, more or less Assyrian in aspect, with battlements of pyramidal outline, notched like little groups of steps. Here are Greeks, in hel- mets finished with nose-pieces, like those of the figures from the Higina temple. But what stamps the originality of the picture is the strange conception of the wooden horse, re- stored with a bewildering aspect of probability, as the Greeks might have designed it when Greek art was partly Phoenician, partly Egyptian. A mighty structure it is, towering just within the walls, clearly carved of wood, and strengthened with metal bands ; the fore-feet and hind-feet, spread far apart from each other in the attitude of a steed that balks, are con- nected by a plinth, like the limbs of an Assyrian bull, with an archway intervening between the front and posterior limbs. From the tower on the monster’s back, with a chief directing the descent, the imprisoned soldiers let themselves down by ropes, accompanied by packages of armor. A Trojan sen- tinel lies dead under the walls that sleep in shadow ; the night is fading, the mischief is admitted, and in the foreground a series of diminishing heads of the intruding Greeks steal down into Troy by a narrow stair concealed in the bastion. These foreground figures are drawn like the Atgina warriors in motion. A strange, uncanny feeling of remote antiquity breathes from these creeping forms in the moonlight and this ghastly hollow horse overlooking the loftiest towers and pro- ducing its train of stealthy enemies. The canvas is a sort of pictorial enigma, the horse is as uncomfortable as a sphinx. 1 1 We think of the ingenious lines of Drummond of Hawthorn- den about the Horse of Troy : “ A mother, I was without mother born ; In end, all armed my father I brought forth ; What thousand ships, and champions of renown Could not do, free, I, captive, razed a town.” The picture made a sensation in the Salon of 1874, and aroused attention to the name and subsequent works of M. Motte. In 1876 he exhibited a “ Baal Devouring the Prison- ers of Babylon,” in 1877 a “Samson and Delilah,” both understood from the point of view of archaic study. The Baal was particularly original ; a sort of Babylonian Sphinx, with head-dress and wings, spread out its two hands with the peculiar action of catching a fly ; and between these two trap- like hands, into the yawning mouth of the sphinx which served as a portal, the prisoners were driven two by two. The allusion to Baal as “ master of flies” was ingenious and strik- ing. “ With such a temperament and such an order of ideas,” remarks Charles Yriarte, “ M. Motte might turn out to be a dry painter, in truth he ought to be one in the order of things; but I detect in this young artist a workman who, when there was occasion, would not despise painting the details as ‘bits,’ and would willingly pay attention to light, sunshine and lumi- nous effects. He has blank faces of wall detaching themselves from the sky in lengths of shadow which have real pictorial quality.” To the Salon of 1878 M. Motte contributed “The Army of Hannibal,” representing elephants upon rafts, and to that of 1879 “Circe and the Comrades of Ulysses.” INDEED at the inspiration of Diissel- dorf art, L e u tz e’s painting can hardly be called Ame- rican, al- though he passed his life here. The “Cromwell and Milton” (84x60 inches), was painted in 1857 to Mr. Corcoran’s order. It is a Diisseldorf composition pur sang. Milton, the Latin Secretary of Cromwell’s Parliament, is imagined by the romantic painter as holding the most inti- mate family relations with the Protector, and as entertaining 12 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. the scant leisure of the Puritan chief with his known ac- complishment of organ-playing. The young poet, his face in a deep shadow which seems to prefigure his approaching blindness, sits at the instrument; Cromwell and his wife are | behind him, in a composed, church-like throng of Puritan | notables. At the left, holding a book, is Selden. Ireton : comes next, and by him Ireton’s wife, the daughter of Crom- | well. At the right are represented Thurlow and Algernon | Sidney. The pleasant group of children is a portraiture of Leutze’s own offspring. It were to be wished that the scene | rested on a more authentic tradition. The Cromwellian par- , liament indeed made young Milton its Latin Secretary, he | being about the only man among those who had adopted Puritanism who possessed the requisite education; but the records of close association between Cromwell and Milton ; are lacking. One thing is well known, Milton’s skill at the | keyboard, and the intense delight he took in church music. There is a singular passage in his Penseroso, where he ac- knowledges himself captivated with the very things it was executed abroad. He became a pupil of Lessing at Dussel- dorf, and the style of the painter of “ The Martyrdom of Huss” is evident in all of Leutze’s works subsequent to that visit. Returning to the United States with a fixed German style, the husband of a German wife, genial and robust, he became probably the happiest painter who ever followed a career in America. As this division of our work is conse- crated to 'Washington, it is proper to mention his large fresco of “ Emigration” on a staircase of the Capitol, a work show- ing inexperience in the methods of fresco-painting, but con- taining admirable morsels, and beyond all doubt the best picture there since those of Trumbull. “ The Judgment of Paris” (40 x 50 inches), is by Henry Peters Gray (1819-1877), an American arti.st who died in New York. Mr. Gray emulated the amber warmth of Titian, and was thought by his colleagues to have caught a great deal of the color of the 'Venetians ; he lingers in the mind as a sort of American Etty, with excellent endowments of nature in the research for color, somewhat hampered by the difficulty THE DEAD C/ESAR. FAC-SIMILE OF THE ORIGINAL SKETCH, BY J. L. GEROMK. Cromwell’s mission to break in pieces — the “storied windows, richly dight” with saints and Madonnas, in Catholic chapels ; also, the “ high-embowed roof, with antique pillars massy proof;” the historic splendor of Popish architecture; the light interrupted by the stained glass, which he acknowledges to be “ religious,” and what is more, the musical pomp of the ceremonial of Rome, such as he had heard in Italy. This la.st, confesses the youthful Puritan, melts his soul to rapture and indulges him with a vision of Paradise : “ There let the pealing organ blow To the full-voiced choir below, In service high and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies And bring all Heaven before mine eyes.” Emmanuel Leutze (18 16-1868) was not a native Ameri- can, having been born in Wiirtemberg ; but he came in childhood to this country with his father, and began here his artistic education. His youth was passed in Philadelphia, in the house, on Pine Street, near Sixth, afterwards occupied by Paul Weber, the landscapist. His success as an American painter was such that at twenty-five he went to Europe from his Philadelphia home with an accumulation of orders to be experienced by all Americans of his period to get into the atmosphere of art. The languid roundness of his "Venus, the soft adolescence of his Paris, about to bestow on her the prize pro pulchrior, are voluptuously conceived, in the senti- ment of Titian, Palma and Giorgione. A little more evidence of anatomical knowledge would give them that look of con- structive probability, lacking which our Ettys and Haydons die without their full meed of renown. “Caesar” (10 feet 5 inches x 7 feet 2 inches), is by Jean Leon Gerome. When preparing to paint his magnificent “Death of Caesar” (now in the Astor collection. New York, obtained at the J. T. Johnston sale) the artist took the pains to make a life-size study of the principal figure; and, although not a painter accustomed to or wholly successful in life scale, he made an “ academic” that is interesting in many ways. The pencil sketch here shown in fac-simile is a prize, being heretofore absolutely inedited. Never was a figure drawn to lie so flat — one whose planes were so absolutely those of the ground with which it seems incorporated. In looking at the “ Dead Caesar” an artist made a natural remark, “ This is not foreshortening, it is architectural perspective !” The noble life-size figure of Cmsar was first exhibited in 1859, and has the most striking merit as a dramatic conception, H. PETERS GRAY, PIHX. GRAVURE GOUPIL JU.DGMENT OF PARIS BARRIE THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. 13 and as a piece of scholarly drawing. It shows palpably, however, that the artist is not at home in life-scale delineations. We see the confession of experimental endeavor, not the vigor and control of habitual mastery. After this, indeed, which was a continuation of the effort at life-proportion begun in his first successful work, the “ Cock-fight,” the artist returned to the scale by which he is best known, and has ever since produced cabinet-pictures. Such is the size, indeed, of his development of the present subject, the famous and thrilling “Death of Cajsar,” with the retreating Senate and oath of Brutus, a masterly composition owned by Mr. John Jacob Astor — perhaps Gerome’s highest effort among the three or four wonderful canvases devoted to Roman life. His works include another Csesar— this time living — in the celebrated “Cleopatra and Ca:sar,” sung by Robert Browning, and at present adorning the California collection of Mr. D. O. Mills. warning. The Emancipator may see the land of the divine pledge, but may not enter thither. Radiating from his forehead, the traditional beams of light, fading in the twilight of death, illuminate the strange scene with a ghastly eclipse of brightness. At the height where the canvas is placed, Cabanel’s favorite breadth of style looks like platitude, and his reticence of chiaroscuro makes the whole effect unreal and decoration-like. Schreyer’s “The Watering-Place,” (68 x 40 inches), is one of his Wallachian studies, representing the rude and shaggy farm-beasts of the country, of all colors, crowding at a trough. The apogee of Schreyer’s talent was in 1865, when he produced his “Artillery Charge in the Crimea,” at the Luxembourg. Since then he has lost something in precision and conscience of drawing, but his mastery in effects of light on silky or rugged fur is still unquestioned. Two fine scenes by Emile, best known as the brother of THE WATERING PLACE. BY ADOLPHE SCHREYER. FAC -SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY THE ARTIST. Hung too high for easy examination, like the “Csesar,” and like that canvas of large proportions, is the “Death of Moses,” (13 X feet), a youthful work by Alexander Cabanel, executed when this famous painter was studying in Italy as a callow “prix de Rome” of the Picot atelier. The date is 1851, and the date of his lovely “Glorification of Saint Louis,” ex- hibited at the Luxembourg as the chosen earnest of his youthful promise, is 1855. No justice can be done by the visitor to this broad, faint Biblical vision as at present arranged; yet it is a noble work, produced at a period when the talented youth was a greater art-force, in the dawn and expectation of his life, than the grown man is now. To the same epoch belong those magnificent studies of his, done to scale in color, from Michael Angelo’s Sistine figures, which are pointed out in the Beaux- Arts school to students, as the highest attainment ever made by the copyist’s immortalizing art. Moses, supported by groups of angels, is seen horizontal upon the rocks of Nebo, while Jehovah floats in the air above him, a figure of promise and Jules Breton, are included in the collection. The “Moonrise” (331^ X 21)4 inches) is a snow-scene, with peaceful cottage and turkeys roosting. The “Sunset” (66 x 43 inches), is calm and broad, without flagrancy. By Ziem, there is a “ Golden Horn,” of 1874. By Blaise Desgoffe, same year, there is a study (36 x 40 inches), in his well-known photographic style, the best yet invented for chronicling the cabinet-treasures in national collections, of the seventeenth-century nacelle or cup, of lapis, in the Louvre. An excellent Belgian canvas is the “Justice to Lievin Pyn,” by Prof Pauwels, of Wiemar, (71 x 45 inches), executed in 1862. It represents the expiatory mass ordered by Charles V, a reparation to the family of one of the Flemish magistrates he had mistakenly executed. Women and children, the relicts of the deceased, kneel in formal and ceremonial grief in the centre; at the left, the priest with attendant acolyte reads the words of expiation and justification from a parchment; the four grandees implicated in the unjust charge are grouped to the right, and the whole takes place in an illuminated chapel, 14 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. where the statue of Pyn can listen with satisfaction from his tomb. The pomp of the Romish mass, and the contrast between the family of the victim, in mourning, and the repentant or humiliated accusers, make a drama and an artistic antithesis. The admirable little “Preparing for Church,” by Edouard Frere (22 X l8 inches), one of the quaintest imaginable scenes of Sunday-go-to-meeting finery and discomfort, had long been admired m the Taylor John.ston collection ere it found a resting- place in this national one; its date is 1835. It shows a good little boy, quite brittle in his starched blouse, having a stiff ribbon tied round his neck by the anxious mother; while the sister, full of Sunday virtue and consciousness of merit, waits in her glossy cheap silk or alpaca, prayer-book in hand. In the British school, “ Paddy’s Mark” (32 x 24 inches), by Erskine Nichol, has the quality of a humorous illustration. It shows the Irish tenant, full of shrewdness and suspicion, about to sign his cross to the lease, while he looks up questioningly into the land-agent’s face. “The Talking Well” (38 x 71 inches), by Anatole Vely, born at Ronsoy in the departement of Somme, France, has a title which comes with the familiarity of a proverb to the mind of every one who has lived in Paris. One of the old streets of the capital has, in fact, received that name in by-gone times, and has been allowed to retain it through all the wild mutations of nomenclature which those long-suffering French guide-boards have endured. It is in the region of the Pantheon, that lofty quarter called a hill, and dedicated to St. Genevieve. “ On the hill of St. Genevieve,” says Victor Hugo, “a kind of Job of the middle ages sang for thirty years the seven penitential psalms, upon a dung-hill, at the bottom of a dry cistern, beginning a fresh one as soon as he had finished, and raising his voice highest at night; and to this day the antiquary imagines he hears his tones, as he enters the street called Puits qui Parle.” So much to show the proverbial character of the name, and to | suggest how familiar a legend it must be in the mind of a French painter who constantly goes near it in his walks through the Latin Quarter. Accepting the phrase as a suggestive but indefinite opportunity, Vely sets himself to construct the most agreeable fable he can think of for the origin of the street. He imagines a leaf-shadowed cistern, in the old time; a maiden, lovely and trustful, who trips thither to fill her pitcher. As she draws the water, a soft voice addresses her. The well is talking ! The accents are not quite disagreeable, nor wholly unconnected with affairs of the heart. Having probably heard similar ones at the church-door or at the market-place, she is not much alarmed, but she carefully refrains from looking round, to destroy the illusion that it is the water that is whispering. Of such stuff are miracles made. It is the soli- tude that will one day be Paris. Where this grass is growing, where these leaves are rustling, the arid march of civilization will cement the dry stones, and the roar of an immense popu- lation will take the place of the love-message syllabled in liquids by the Talking Well. Vely was a pupil of Signol, and is a constant expositor in the Salons. In the year 1 874 he was honored with a medal. The American paintings comprise the famous original “Niagara,” by F. E. Church (89 x 41 inches), containing the whole sweep of the view from the British side, and inimitable amid the laboriousness of its unemphatic prosy manner for the real success with which a burst of rainbow is made to shine and burn; also a “Mercy’s Dream,” by Huntington (69 x 89 inches), repainted in 1850 from his greatly superior original in the Pennsylvania Academy; landscape works by Durand, Thomas Cole, and Kensett; “The Golden Gate,” by John R. Key; “The Long Story,” one of Mount’s Hogarthian humorous bits. Among British and American works of the last gene- ration, a fine Morland, “The Farm-house,” and an excellent Gilbert Stuart, a portrait of Shippen, the Pennsylvania Chief- Justice,— the genteel, dignified, shrewd head of a lawyer of fifty, well powdered; and another portrait of merit, Sully’s head of Madison. Healy’s studies for the likenesses of the American Presidents, painted for a series ordered by Louis Philippe to be placed in the Versailles Gallery, and continued by the artist so as to include Lincoln, have been obtained from the Bryan collection and added to the Corcoran. This gallery is intended to be likewise an industrial museum, so far as the higher branches of art-manufacture are included; it already contains the nucleus of a good collection of bibelots, curiosities, and articles of virtu. A fine specimen is the Sevres vase, lapis color, presented to the late Prof Henry. It is inscribed, “ Commission Internationale du Metre, Paris, 1872. J. Henry, membre de I’Academie Nationale des Sciences, delegue des Etats-Unis d’Amerique.” There are to be enume- rated the reproductions by Cristofle of the Hildesheim Treasure, in twenty-two pieces of fine silver- and goldsmith’s work; a bronze reduced copy of the Vendome column at Paris, over five feet high : a bronzed reduction of Rauch’s monument to Frederick the Great, at Berlin, about five feet high and eight wide, obtained from the German exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial ; and, from the same, a bronzed copy of the monu- ment to the Great Pdector, at Berlin, by Schlutter, six feet in height; and electrotype reproductions of the “Milton Shield” and “Pompeian Toilet” of Morel Ladeuil; with nearly a hundred electrotypes by Elkington of objects in the South Kensington Museum. The beginning of a fair ceramic col- lection, already rather rich in Japanese porcelain and enamel, is now in place. SCULPTURE OF THE CORCORAN GALLERY. The marbles of the collection are sufficient in number, if they were collected in a hall by themselves, to form an effective glyptothek; as it is their effect is dissipated among the throng of plaster casts, adapted to art-students’ uses. There is a fine marble bust of Pulaski, with much artistic luxury of frogs and tags about the uniform, executed at Philadelphia by H. Damochowski in 1857. There are several relics of Giuseppe Ceracchi, the liberty-mad sculptor from Rome, whose cosmo- politan wanderings included the young American republic in a life which was one long research after the forms of national freedom. His “ Dying Tecumseh,” a large figure, inefficient ethnographically, sprawls in one of the galleries. His bust of 'Washington, executed in 1795 at Philadelphia, is included in pjppipaWiWB r^- y '■ '■ l: V ,-c - ■'-• ’‘.^.V '■ •• ■ '’-V •• X.' ^ ‘ • 'r-. ' >'• - '-S' V' ’ *'■ ■ / . •^.' 'i >x - ■* - •i M 0 0 0 W 4 ,'N S § I '4 < £C cj; u ic ffi c J I f^- 'I • ‘ i‘> \ V.v^' ■;f ■si 1 ) i ■■'i i ■1 ( '. ' ^ '>'V \ ••"1 'I ) THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. 15 ideas, adorn the Pantheon at Rome, the galleries of Munich, London, and America. We learn from Les Miserables (Part II, Book 6, Ch. vii) that a sister of Ceracchi’s, called Mother Saint Celigne went mad, and was enclosed in the severe Benedictine convent of the Petit Picpus in Paris. The “ Dying Napoleon” by Vela occupies a place of honor in the Corcoran Gallery. The name Vela being so much like Vely, we might have digressed from the picture-collection to the sculpture, to call at- tention to the sculptor Vela who carves the “ Dying Napoleon,” was Bonapartism in Paris at that brightest moment of the third Napoleon’s reign! At the Philadelphia Centennial Vela was represented by “The First Sorrow,” one of his early works, a sitting girl with a wounded kitten. Two of his statues have places of honor in the town of Lugano — a “William Tell” in front of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and “La Desolazione” in the Ciani Garden. The original “ Napoleon” having been purchased by Napoleon III and removed to Ver- sailles, the present replica was ordered by Mr. John Taylor the collection, and forms an important document in the Washing- ton iconography. Near the Tecumseh is seen Ceracchi’s own bust, in a blouse, with broad collar and flaunting tie, and showing a small narrow skull, and a vulgar clean-shaved face, eagerly looking up. Born in 1760, after living in London, America and Vienna, he was guillotined at Paris in 1800 on account of the part he had taken in the invention of the infernal machine di- rected against the life of Napoleon. His works, scattered as his and prevent once for all a sin of misnomer on the reader’s part. Vincenzo Vela, the carver of the “Napoleon,” is considered one of the two foremost sculptors of Italy, (though Swiss by birth), his rival being Giovanni Dupre. The “Napoleon” or “ Gli Ultimi Giorni di Napoleone” was the most remarked statue at the Paris Exposition of 1867. All day its base was heaped with violets and immortelles, and votive poems were laid on its pedestal as the exhibition progressed. So strong THE DYING NAPOLEON. FROM THE ORIGINAL BY VINCENZO VELA. i6 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. Johnston, the well-known New York connoisseur, at the sale of whose collections it was bought for this Gallery. Vela has practised his profession in Florence and Milan; his instructor was the sculptor Cacciatori. This impressive statue affects the mind precisely like one of the admirable pictures of Delaroche. It is history, but history arranged and made pathetic with an art akin to that of the playwright. It is not classicism, it is not realism, but it is as a drama of Scribe. The hero, devoured by the interior disease that is soon to make him its prey, sits in his invalid chair at Longwood, his feet swathed in blankets, his dressing-gown open at the chest for air, every accessory indicating bodily lassitude and exhaustion; meanwhile his fore- head is bowed with the impulse of destiny and thought, and his clenched hand, like the talon of an eagle, falls upon the map of Europe. Many persons who have probably desired to admire this work have been repelled by the fact that the blanket is wrought to a delusive imitation of some soft and fluffy material. Death,” and the “Melancholia.” But after all, the expression of an emotion is not reserve of all expression, and the races of the South, in poetry, music and design, have always claimed the privilege of expressing themselves demonstratively and ex- pansively, and wonderful effects have been got in their arts with that theatrical condition attached. Hiram Powers’ “Greek Slave,” the earliest American statue of world-wide celebrity, has a particular right in the gallery. It was carved to Mr. Corcoran’s order, being the first replica made from the original work by the artist, which was executed for Captain Grant of the English army, and is still owned by him, at Raby Castle. The second replica was made for A. T. Stewart’s collection, where it remains ; the third for the Earl of Dudley; the fourth for Prince Demidoff, at the disposal of whose collection it brought 53,000 francs (the highest price for a statue at the sale) and went to England; the fifth copy, and sixth time of executing the work by Mr. Powers, THE LIONESS OF SENEGAL. BRONZE. — BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE. that the chair is carved as elaborately with ornament as Boule or Berain would have carved it, and that the hands are realistic, representing the pores and creases of the skin. They have been told that these details are bad art, and indicate a mere- tricious taste. The fact is that sculpture, as understood by Vela, means, first, a great conception carried out with breadth, and then a play of delicate legerdemain akin to the clever brush- work of a painter. Different as this decoration of a tragedy, this amusement of the surface while the heart is supposed to be breaking, must ever seem from the generalization of the Greeks, it is an interesting experiment in sculpture, one of the directions in which the truth is searched through its utmost forms, and, in art, is a legitimate and praiseworthy form of exercise. The conception and earnestness of the statue are beyond the need of apology, always granting that its pathos is the Delaroche pathos, with an indefinable sense of dying before the footlights. An artist chosen from the Gothic races, a man with a sobriety of soul akin to Durer’s, would certainly have expressed the subject very differently, and with an austerity that would be more in keeping with the Anglo-Saxon mind. Think of the grave way in which Diirer has treated the sense of impending doom, or of the vanity of earthly endeavor, in the “ Knight and was for Mr. E. W. Stoughton, of New York. Three in Eng- land, and three in America, the repetitions of the Slave may be said to have made the world richer by about ,863,600 — a fortune for an idea. The subject is a modern Greek girl in a Turkish slave-mart, stripped, and haughty among her heathen captors, with the superiority of Christianity. Powers’ “ Pro- serpine” and “ Ginevra,” marble busts, occupy places in the south-east gallery. Such diverting works as “ The Forced Prayer,” by Guarnerio, and “Youth as a Butterfly,” by Caroni, — good-humored fairings acquired at the Centennial by Mr. Corcoran — and W. H. Rinehart’s “ Endymion” are added to the marble part of the exhibition. The bronzes cannot be considered unimportant, since they include the complete workshop of Antoine Louis Barye, the greatest animalist who ever lived. Barye (1796-1875) began life by peddling his figures through the streets of Paris in a basket, and died a professor of comparative anatomy in the Jardin des Plantes. He revived the disused art of casting bronze a cire perdu, or accurately from a waxen shell around a core, — which wax, being finished with the exact touches de- sired, yielded to the artist a strict fac-simile of his work in metal, without the necessity of that chasing which in ordinary ;lic i X prs^Wi)'.* d "in».vi iff '* S4 » 'w'l this ^V6r ■;^su^‘h^ >!jd AXAvX U; th;i‘:, Ui"::U'i'a'' C'' M mi o-i ■ ir ^1 y v*^ r, u 7 i^ t \ '■li H.'/.tir ' - '^i'-; , ' ;' ■■« ;ir A.; ::;t1c,, iiiis up!'a ■ ;;:-')i.;i^iy dc.-,ii\?!.H' ■ . ■•■ ■ ^^? tl-., , !.-.-C, l)k;.;':, , , . ■ ■ ■ ■ > -O'- .? <orf ,in<! rtult'' rv'fir/. ' 'iror ■■ ' > V: . ' ,of cCi, ■■' [;a-ll'::ry.- ,• fv «','is '..irve'' '*•'- '■''' ;. .■ ^ I■^'pl^:A h^uii: .,1- \ ' I'Ork by th? ■\ »•*.■>“*(- 0r3U> 0t’ t'ilC Ikoyiwb " ' '■ v;' ■jK'ii.'y Crt5tS;y^'''r:>r see .• • ■ ■■ '"■.•■..'■ ■ :f r- . ■ ■ ■ ■ ' k li’-r l>c. ■ ■' '' ;■'■'■ ■■ ^ ■ '■■'V ,v-,. -■ i t hAt tJitJ':'. • ■t : • t'J'r ,^• V!T:fhVr7(t«-;^' Vjftl ■ ,' ' '■ -;.n;7 I, ■ ! jtr'i tf)f bu:'i'i;« ia.rc {T-ilistv.; ; :7-vst>es of the s!.7 , Ihi-y haVv ; V bad arts anti, ^ '■i'- ;it«; -a- rr:.--"' duil kci7lp9»re,3.s ^ , ] ':■^:pv^n can-'Cii .•■ait ]}r£;;n,.b; . , "I'n.airi ai.iii 'i6 i‘'v' id-o/er.bi'- . ." ■> ■ .' ,' ' , ■7 7' as biu dvr itan:'-! ^ . , ;. ■ V7 while thy heart. 17 7. p - he' ■" ‘.be generaUaflrion ’ . 'b ' h' , ■ • • ■ ■.• ■■uk:»ti:re, the direct ■' ■. : . -'^ ■ .b-'eiyvh ^hvtmeii .'^iw . V-:— j.iy rbife of ta^iatC ybeJ e.r '! ;';•<? 'Srfl Jfe(bybW<S'icjii^’^ :i'7.e .!;,« its' pathas :>! 7 si'-'i'-.'' of dying hi'(drf: • evi 'v^ . ■ . ; V fjiyysh.ij V. yd f;y v ulg's - - jif ( 7 'hic raros. a !. ./ '.'•■‘./UKi cf rtaiah' .),.; ;v! u'yeh ah ansu : ;. • hv-Saxb:'-' on't'd ^ ; .. s:^briety ■;■ ;■. .i the ■ •-■. - b-. ;: j he‘ t ii 'the ' ■c C'f :n)ih::7<'!!r(g ght anc ~.sn‘ .inf.'lhc 'Ecifoeiiy Carhni^; •^dedht r. ^ basket, -and '*.'pr Jardin’.A'.s n-i*|€(y ,'-f Voo'r^i— w;^icb • ■^fc5/iswldcd tft't ' .v.y.st'a’ 'melaiij wi^ou^ tkc e.j.f yflince they tin.' ^ a ■Oi>»y\ jv>- ,tJy: •-iwed -iirt .<jf . .i-,;j.:i.ifl;; xbc.il aeet'fj.r' s - 'i - , : ^ .; itiibt • •.of' hh' wchJe IK ; vSich li’ROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY LOUIS PRIOU. IN THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. 17 large bronzes effaces the individuality of the sculptor’s model- ing. It was Barye’s specialty to use this cast a cire perdti for a pattern, from which his ordinary commercial bronzes were cast with great accuracy, no chasing being permitted but the erasure of the mould-seams ; so that even the mercantile reproduction, having nearly all the autographic character of the waxen sketch, and their method, in the case of the Barye statuettes, is familiarly but inaccurately called a cire perdu, because no riffler-work or cross-hatch of the chaser’s tool is visible. The life, vigor, sense of movement and science of anatomy in these animals are quite unapproached. It is a sign of the sculptor’s greatness that, having to do with a class of nature’s works habitually masked in suits of hair, he boldly discards the furry covering as the less important thing to be expressed, and goes down at once to the muscular machine of the beast, which he represents, not indeed as if shorn and group in the collection shows him devouring a hare, and crawling off as he eats. Of about equal dimensions, Theseus, in the Greek fable, attacks the Centaur, for the rescue of Hippo- damia, and leaping on the back of the astonished monster, rides poor Eurytion horse-like, while he uninterruptedly ham- mers him to death. Again, “Theseus and the Minotaur” afford the chance to study a human-animal paradox. Roger and Angelica, from Ariosto’s poem, soar away on the hippogriffin. The modern Arab horseman is seen under the attack of the python-snake. Further on, in sportive mood, the sculptor shows us young bears at play, or an ape riding on a gnu. From the constellations to the circus-trick, from the heights of poetry and legend to the sordidness and squalor of the weasel or the wolf, the artist is equally at home, and his eques- trian portrait-subjects of Bonaparte and De Foix are not more respected by him than his alligator, his tortoise, or his rabbit. THE LION OF'JULY. FAC-SIMILE OF DRAWING BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE, FROM HIS BRONZE, denuded, (or the creatures would seem much slenderer,) but with every muscle shown in action, by a sort of compromise between the surface form and the constructive form. The one hundred and fifteen pieces in the Corcoran Gallery amount to the most complete exhibit of Barye’s life-work anywhere to be found, whether in Europe or America. This sculptor at once gets at the character of the beast represented, and is not deterred by the difficulty of representing life in motion. The prowling ways of beasts of prey, the evil grace and consummate flexibility of their attitudes, the stealth of their approach, the vivid unmasking of their ferocity, the voluptuousness of their gormandizing, constitute for him a drama of never-failing interest, of ever fresh intensity. Wandering through his won- derful menagerie of bronze, we see the horror of the ferine nature in all its bareness : the spider-like leap of the beast upon its victim is sprung upon us on every side, and seems in the act of taking place. The “ I.ioness of .Senegal” folds her paws satisfied and sphinx-like, or the “ Lion of July,” from the commemorative column in Paris, prowls among the stars, elevated to the importance of a constellation. The jaguar, his swift uncoiling spring accomplished, securely pulls down the timid eland ; or, flattening his breast upon the mud, he sets his teeth in the unguarded throat of the crocodile; the largest Barye left a limited number of paintings in water-color: they are amateurish as far as the landscape backgrounds are concerned, but the drawing and movement of the animals forming their themes are full of reality. A number of these are in Mr. Walters’ celebrated collection at Baltimore ; two, a “ Tiger Hunt” and “ Sleeping Lioness,” are in the Corcoran Gallery. The selection of casts in plaster of Paris is very complete and judicious. A new museum -building, having of necessity a liberal space to provide, which may not be immediately filled with material of cost and intrinsic value, can do no better than occupy its rooms provisionally with these beautiful shadows of classic art, whose essential merit overbears any consideration of the cheapness and accessibility of the medium. The lower floor of the Corcoran Gallery is therefore furnished with the usual antiques, destined ultimately for use in its schools. There are a hundred or more such copies, representing the principal part of the classic treasure which the lovers of beauty have worshipped since two thousand years. The plasters usually seen in art-schools are here in abundance. The Uffizi is asked for its Venus de’ Medici and its Wrestlers. The British Museum is drawn upon for its Elgin Marbles and its Clytie. The Vatican and Capitol are applied to for those THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. masterpieces which Byron rechiseled into poetry, and for some that have been unearthed since his pilgrimage, such as the Apoxyomenos and the Augustus in armor. The Louvre is begged to spare the copies of its Venus of Milo, its Fighting Gladiator, and its Germanicus and Jason and Diana. Besides these, and not so much a commonplace of the academies, there is a very piquant and well-considered selection made by the trustees of sculptures of the French renaissance. Jean Goujon’s works are seen in their graceful, fluent profusion— the reliefs Grouped together in a small connecting gallery, are seen the three Venuses of modern art which have been most loudly claimed by their respective admirers to approach the Greek standard of excellence. Respectively by Gibson, by Canova, and by Thorwaldsen, this assembly of beauty-goddesses proves how little the worship is an affair of place or nationality. Prudish England and cold Copenhagen are as ready to offer their tribute as congenial Italy. Of the three, Thorwaldsen’s ideal is strikingly superior, and a little sketch of it has been THESEUS AND MINOTAUR. BRONZE. BY ANTOINE LOUI? BAKYE. of nymphs from the fountain of the Innocents, with the ac- companying Triton, Nereid, and Amphitrite ; his four Evange- lists, from the rood-loft of St. Germain de I’Auxerrois ; and his reliefs from the tomb of Chancellor Duprat. Germain Pilon’s Three Graces, guarding the Urn of Henri II, and representing with smooth reconciliation of flattery the rival Duchess d’Estampes, Mine. Villeroy and Catherine de Medicis, are soft, smooth examples of French art of the Cellini period, and were well worth including. The cast from the vast Ghiberti gate is a lesson in decorative art which throws a fearful challenge to the sculptor of the cheap and poor bronze doors of the Capitol, away up at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. admitted to set off the first page of this work, though repre- senting a cast which is a favorite in many another place besides the Corcoran Gallery. The Venus was executed by the Danish sculptor in Rome; Thorwaldsen employed no less than thirty living models as imperfect patterns of its perfection. Rejecting a first essay made in 1805, the artist began about 1812 to labor industriously on this figure, which, after more than three years of anxious work, he finished in 1 8 16, at the age of forty-six. The first three copies were made for Lord Lucan, the Duchess of Devonshire, and Mr. Labouchere. The duchess’ purchase was broken in unloading the vessel conveying it, and the fracture in the copy, now at Chatsworth, is concealed THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON. 19 by a gold bracelet. That of Lord Lucan was shipwrecked, and saved with difficulty; and afterwards, in unloading, a rope broke, and the marble dropped into a cargo of wheat — Ceres thus saving Venus. The unkind sea, repenting of having given birth to the goddess of so much mischief, has been but a hostile guardian of the soft-limbed effigy in her peregrinations ; but she smiles tenderly at the end of her adventures, unhurt and youthful, and accepts her apple with exquisite cajolery, though in the present instance it is plaster, and probably hollow. The Corcoran Gallery is open on every week-day; on alternate days it is free to the public, but on the intervening ones a slight fee is imposed, in order to afford a relative privacy to the artist and copyist whose interests were a large part of the founder’s concern. It has done, and is doing, an incalcu- lable good; Washington, before its creation, was singularly tion of Mrs. Ogle Taylor may, however, be mentioned, distin- guished for its treasure of paintings, antiques, and rare bric- a-brac. Judge N. H. Swayne possesses a small collection, principally American, though containing water-colors by Mr. Mole, a British artist, with landscapes by William Hart, and by Witt, of Ohio, and fruit, in the style of Preyer, painted by Miss Helen Searle. The Smithsonian Institution shelters the interesting col- lection of Catlin’s Indian sketches, presented by Mrs. Joseph Harrison ; and is to be the recipient of the Riggs Collection of Armor, of seven thousand pieces, displayed in the late Exposition Universelle at Paris, and described in one of the numbers of the London Athenmim. for 1878. It is not in the scope of this work to give critical descrip- tions of the street statues and other very public works of art in THESEUS AND THE CENTAUR. BRONZE. HY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE. bare of art-culture, but now a standard of taste is erected which will exercise an unforeseeable amount of influence in the future. By a singular chain of facts, this influence is to be the blessing of that particular city which has heretofore been dis- tinguished as the fountain of patronage of a vast amount of bad art, sent broadcast over the whole land, a patronage hitherto distributed so ignorantly, and from such unstates- manlike motives, as to amount to a national scandal. The printed catalogue of the Corcoran Gallery is accessible to the public, and may be obtained from the Curator, Mr. William Macleod. The conditions of life at Washington city have not hitherto made it so much a home and haunt of private art-collectors as will be found in many a metropolis inferior to it in splendor and excitement, but distinguished by the hoards of wealth proceeding from commerce or industry. The notable collec- American cities, at least beyond the critical distinction of enumerating or not enumerating them. The finest and most important work of statuary in the city is probably the bronze of Jefferson, by David d’Angers, in the semi-circular “ marble room” of the Capitol. Its date is shown by the inscription on its base, “ Presented by Uriah Phillips Levy, of the United States Navy, to his' fellow-citizens, 1833.” A bronze copy of Houdon’s famous Washington is in the same room — a cast from the original, in marble, to be seen in the Capitol at Richmond, Virginia. In the same chamber is the Chancellor Livingston, by Palmer, in bronze, a replica of which is in the Capitol at Albany, N. Y. In the “ marble room,” likewise, is to be seen the incomplete series of famous men of the different Commonwealths, of which each State, when it gets ready, contributes a pair. Massachusetts has sent John Winthrop, by Greenough, and Samuel Adams, by Anne Whitney; Rhode Island, Roger Williams, by Franklin Sim- 20 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. mons, and Gen. Greene, by H. K. Brown ; Connecticut, Trum- bull, and Sherman, both by Ives ; Ethan Allen, a theatrical figure, by Larkin G. Mead, occupies a conspicuous station, and William King, of Maine, Hamilton (by Dr. Stone), and Gen. Baker, are represented in effigies of various degrees of mediocrity. The central rotnnda of the Capitol is surrounded with a series of uniform paintings representing American historical scenes, of which only four have any artistic importance — being those by Jonathan Trumbull (1756-1843) representing “The Declaration of Independence,” “ The Surrender of Burgoyne,” “ The Surrender of Cornwallis’ Army,” and “ The Resignation of Washington at Annapolis.” The artist’s admirable sketches for these important works are at Yale College. The rotunda has a dome which was frescoed with an Apotheosis of Wash- ington, very badly, by Brumidi, at a cost of ,^39,500; this artist died at a great age, February, 1880, leaving incomplete a circle of figures in grisaille, representing a frieze, beneath the dome. A bronze statue of Columbia, modeled by Crawford and cast by Clark Mills, surmounts the external dome, its cost to the nation having been ,^23,796. The fresco by Leutze, called THOMAS JEFFERSON. STATUE IN BRONZE, IN THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON. BY DAVID D* ANGERS. “ Emigration,” decorates the wall of the western stairway of the House, for which the artist received ,^20,000. A couple of landscapes by Thomas Moran, representing scenery of the Far West, and Powell’s “Victory of Lake Erie” (on the landing of the stairway to the Senate Chamber,) may also be mentioned among the interior decorations of the Capitol. The last-named I artist likewise painted “ The Discovery of the Mississippi,” in the rotunda. In front of the building, in the east park, sits the colossal marble “Washington,” by Horatio Greenough (1805- 1852,) in classic array; it is a work of merit, and its partial nudity, which gives it a rather inappropriate air in winter as it is, would have been no defect in the situation for which it was BEAR CUBS PLAYING. BRONZE. BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE. ordered, the centre of the rotunda; it is to be hoped that this worthy work of a deserving sculptor will yet be placed in the situation for which the mind of the artist adapted it. Its cost was ^44,000. His group called “ The Rescue” is also at the Capitol, and represents the struggle between the Anglo-Saxon race and the aborigines. In the public squares and streets of Washington City are various statues. Gen. Jackson’s, in bronze, by Clark Mills, was unveiled in 1853, Lafayette Square. Its cost was ,$50,000. A replica of it is set up in New Orleans. Gen. Scott’s statue, in bronze, at the intersection of Seventeenth street with Massa- chusetts and Rhode Island avenues, was erected in 1874, Mr. H. K. Brown being the sculptor; its cost was $20,000. Gen. Scott has another bronze statue, at the Soldiers’ Home, de- signed by Launt Thompson. That in bronze of Gen. John A. Rawlins, on New York avenue. North West, is by J. A. Bailly, of Philadelphia, was erected in 1874, and cost $10,000. Presi- dent Lincoln’s statue, in Lincoln Park, on East Capitol street, was erected by the negroes in 1876, the first subscription being that by Charlotte Scott, an ex-slave, of the first five dollars she earned in freedom. The sculptor was Mr. Thomas Ball. Gen. McPherson’s bronze statue is in the square named after him, on Vermont avenue, between I, K, and Fifteenth streets ; is by Robisso, of Ohio, and cost $25,000. Gen. Nathaniel Greene, of revolutionary fame, has been commemorated by a statue erected upon Stanton Square, Capitol Hill, at the junction of Massachusetts and Maryland avenues. An equestrian statue in bronze of Gen. Thomas, by J. Q. A. Ward, was erected in 1879 at the Fourteenth street or Victory Circle. Such is the bare list ; the quality of the various works is as unequal as pos- THE CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHLNGTON. 21 sible, but the important observation to make is, that this quality has been advancing rapidly among the statues more recently erected, and that the greatest improvement in public works of an alleged art-nature may immediately be looked for in this country. Poor Washington has been the victim of every artist’s egotism, the focus of the greed of all the muses ; but the standard is higher now, and gross mistakes are henceforth probably impossible. COLUMBIA. Crawford’s statue surmounting the dome of the capitol, Washington. Some additional facts relating to the mighty budget of costs for the decoration of Washington City may be of interest. The bronze door by Randolph Rogers, portraying the history of Columbus, in the passage-way leading from the old to the new Hall of Representatives, in the Capitol, cost ,^25,000, of which ^8,000 went to the artist for his model, and the rest to the founder, Muller of Munich. Thomas Crawford received $6,000 for the model of the bronze door for the main entrance to the north wing; and for the casting of this, the Chicopee Works got nearly three times the Munich price, or ;^50,495. A bronze door for the main entrance to the south wing was de- signed by Crawford, and executed in plaster from his sketches by Rinehart, for the price of ^8,940. The pediment of the north wing of the Capitol is filled with figures designed by Crawford, and for this decoration, with his statues of Justice j and History over the principal doorway of the north wing, he received $20,000. The Italian cutters who executed the me- j chanical work from these models were paid at the highest rate j of art-industry. Gagliardi received ,^5,500 for cutting the group of “ Instruction,” with the wheat-sheaf and anchor. Gagliardi ' and Casoni were paid $7,000 for cutting the figure of “America” I and the “Indian Family;” and Caspero $400 for cutting the “ Indian Grave.” The details of the pediment were costly, as | shown by the prices paid to the cutter after the models were | provided by Crawford — the“ Commerce,” ,^2,200; “Woodman,” ;^2,55o; “Soldier,” $i,6oo-, “Hunter,” $2,000; “Indian Chief,” ^3,000, all to one Butti; to D. Giampaoli, 1,900 for cutting the figure of the “Mechanic” in this group. The marble for the statuary on this pediment is from the quarries at Lee, in Massachusetts, the same used for the architecture of the building. Better sculptors have arisen in America than Crawford, Rinehart and Rogers, two of whom have now passed away ; but these were among the best representatives of the national art to be found at the time the commissions were awarded, and, after all, there is something glorious in having our national Capitol decked, not by the newest and most accomplished of our artists, but by those whose places are already taken in the shadow of the past, and who have niches in our history. CANOVA’S STATUE OF WASHINGTON. The present work will sweep over so many geographical zones, that it is necessary to catch at any excuse of appropri- ateness, in order to conceal the abruptness of the inevitable transitions. Virginia and North Carolina have more local affinity with Washington than they will seem to have with the standpunkt when we are in Canada, or in California ; so that this article, which began with no outlook alongside its blind- halters except the beauties of the Corcoran Gallery, has already been betrayed into constituting itself a limited art-guide to the capital city, and now must give a word to a matter or two which naturally come into the mind in Washington. The great sculptor of Voltaire, Jean Antoine Houdon, at the summit of his powers and renown, was invited to America by Franklin, and executed a conscientious portrait-statue of Washington. We have already, apropos of its copy in Wash- ington, mentioned that the original of this work is to be seen at the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia. The life mask from Washington’s face, taken by Houdon, long preserved at Mount Vernon, passed successively to the sculptor Clark Mills and then to Wilson Macdonald, and has been executed in fac-simile in bronze by Maurice J. Power, of New York. In relation to the superb statue of Jefferson, by David d’Angers, just noticed at the Capitol in Washington, it might be mentioned that the artist’s original model, in plaster, is sacredly preserved as an art-relic at the City Hall, New York. A third statue of immortal interest, belonging to the early time when American heroes were celebrated by great foreign artists, is the marble of Washington by Canova, at Raleigh, North Carolina. It was executed at Rome, about 1810, and the commission for it gave the artist unusual gratification, “ as the first piece of sculpture executed in the Old, and publicly commissioned in the New World — thus uniting, by the fame of one individual, the art of both hemispheres.” Canova represented Washington seated, in the costume of a Roman general, his foot placed upon a sceptre. The price, it may be mentioned, was ^25,000. The heavy monument was safely landed at Wilmington, in North Carolina, and thence drawn to Raleigh by twenty-four mules. It was placed in the Rotunda of the Old Capitol, which was burned in 1831. The weight of the figure and its pedestal made its removal impossible, and 22 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. parts of it were badly calcined and crumbled by the heat. That it is not beyond easy restoration, however, is shown by the fact that a New York artist of some repute undertook to “ make it as good as new” for the sum of one thousand dollars, a contract not yet fulfilled. The problem of saving so valuable an art- document as necessarily must be a Washington by Canova should be undertaken with caution, discretion, and the best advice. Meanwhile the remains of this interesting work are preserved with the utmost care in one of the rooms of the new Capitol at Raleigh, awaiting their easy rehabilitation into the ideal that was in the eye of the liberty-loving stonecutter’ s-lad of Possagno. FAC-SIMILE OF AN ENGRAVING BY MOSES, FROM THE ORIGINAL STATUE BY CANOVA. :• i: -/■ : 'f .'9 ■ ■\: •>r-, ; ■ f "'''1 t S 1 - % t I . Y I- ( .-.V'- ,• . . ■' . . f- •., , ••/_. '• . . -w ‘ ■, <f’ 1' ^ •‘■■i ■ i , Jrtiv, ftjliivg oni' <;'■ thv'.vwy. %i‘ --v.p'!-' ■ -I. h«r!t j'iUicries : r : ;’u- , ' . .\;;.y»tJ^uht«jly '! .. ,.. ys --'t>c(4^;T..'y ■ , ^ ■ ry ur>, • xafejc^i*'; .■ ' <}■ •- r--'.:-.l, ;.,, '•M-’IP Ste^‘ " ■ fiBuL'' ; > ' .’ . ? **:■>. -it .V- -. >v ■ / ■ ■'. I , .1 _\t: -t l. . . . . f/ ^'y--|hy- . ■ ■ . . "■ > e’: '¥■ "^k,- ^l!Vf] witj) i r,-!.J <l.lppOjj®|g'* ,' , ■ .■:.■■■ •piv.ir,'-..'- yi.. ■ ■■■-■y--* "hi'-- j'iv \ ■■ •' .‘^' • ■ a”" • ■• '• ■ ' • ■ ; . . t'.vvc-ruifi!i,t?33M^w%nyd:' {yg^»y . ■ \ <3^'^esic; ., t//U»s'4di, v.u.y^. . '• '••■• I ■» trea-. . . b-;c > yti < •!' •.- , \ , yC.A ' 'X'-Y y' .»«:•• . i;'r p--yurw45.:qs»th I# y-; '■ '"V-, ■ :'. !• '■•-■U! tilt Ikivr. ,i'y lac^isia. sii^' <-'■' .... . K . f ^ • r)L''f •■ *•■ ;•" ' -13 V i- -'..c ■-■.#■' ■ #• ■ ■ , iS' ' r.u '' ,•’■ O}.-: fll' t ■f -' ■■ 'ffY 'y -.rv But ^i'^e'shoii-ts of K wirfv sit^, aftd w;ti • * , •• • . y- >yji HiUJ ilM ...Jll i' THE HORSE FAIR. FAC-SIMILF OF AN ETCHING BY J. VEYRASSAT, AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ROSA BONHEUK. The Collection of Mrs. a. t. Stewart. we judge by a pecuniary standard, this collection, now filling one of the very few expressly- built galleries in the city of New York, is undoubtedly the principal private one of the country, — perhaps so from any standard. The gallery is an oblong, lofty building attached to the residence inhabited by Mr. Stewart in his lifetime, resting on the solid earth, and therefore not afraid of its heavy statues. It is lighted in the usual gallery- style by skylights. The coved space connect- ing the breadth of wall above the pictures with the lantern in the ceiling is decorated with a system of conventionally-designed frescoes in grisaille by Bigaldi, along which, at regular spaces, and framed in the painted monochrome scrollwork, are medallions con- taining portraits in color ; those of American artists stretch along one side of the cornice; those of living Europeans, such as Meissonier and Gerome, occupy the other. On the western side of the gallery, which is one of the shorter ones of the oblong, is seen the plain and sturdy face of Rosa Bonheur, occupying a centre in the cornice just above her own colossal canvas of “ The Horse Fair.” This great work — the most con- spicuous in the catalogue — fills the end of the room, being placed above the rows of smaller pictures. Opposite it, at the other end of the gallery, a similar post of honor is awarded to the exquisite, and similarly gigantic, work of her brother, Auguste Bonheur, representing “Cattle in the Forest of Fon- tainebleau.” Other pictures stud the crowded walls, without much care for making “ centres,” or relieving each other ; Bouguereau’s “ Return from Harvest,” however, makes a con- spicuous centre on the south wall, from its large extent and life-size scale. Opposite this is the “ 1807” of Meissonier. The floor is encumbered with statuary and with easels supporting gems of painting. A necessary device in the adjustment of such a throng of treasures has been the recent creation of a line of places for pictures beneath the top of the dado, where they rear up from the floor. By this means a class of minute and important subjects is placed where the fullest, most adequate examination is possible. But all the sheets of color are stretched where they can be fairly seen, and where they will not shock each other too much by juxtaposed discords. The gallery has inevitably a rather crushed appearance, though 23 24 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. many important or bulky pictures belonging to the collection are in other rooms ; neither the “ Thusnelda” of Piloty, nor the “ Hamlet and Ophelia” of Merle, for example, is allowed to encumber it. The “ March of the American States,” by Yvon, decorates the great hotel belonging to the Stewart estate at Saratoga. By Gerome, worthy of an early mention in this article because the selections are technically so important, are two ' examples in his best vein, and one less of a favorite; the “ Pollice Verso” and the “Collaboration” are in his finest style, while the “Chariot Race” has a patent and obvious unsatisfac- toriness. The “ Pollice Verso” is the natural pendant to that other grand and moody satire on Roman civilization, the “ Ave Casar, Morituri te salutant.” The “ Death of Caesar” might be arranged as a complementary third drama in Gerome’s Roman trilogy. Let us turn now to the “ Pollice Verso.” The artist’s unequaled piquancy of spirit leads him to seize upon the paradox of the Vestal Virgins — emblems of all im- maculacy— savagely demanding in a body the death of the van- quished gladiator. The painter’s authority for fancying the nuns of Vesta in this bloody mood is simply the declaration of antiquarians, that a row of seats was reserved for them at the theatre and at the circus, as representatives of Vesta, the great protectress of the city. From this certainty it was easy for the artist to imagine a moment when they could be carried away by the rush of the spectacle, and feel their grim Roman veins throbbing to the point of a wild clamor for blood. Ac- cordingly we see the chaste creatures in a row in the fore- ground, excited to the ferocity of fishwives, their hot mouths open for cries of death, while the immaculate veils still cover their heads in the garb of sacrifice. This is one of the splendid contrasts which Gerome so loves, where the weight of a whole civilization or religion seems pushing behind each point of the antithesis. What artist, what dramatist, what poet or romancer, has found such a mighty type ? On the one side, the great achievement of antiquity in the way of subjection of the passions of the body, in religious purity; on the other, the pressure of the only civilization that ever made human death its artistic delight; and both these forces meeting, as two mighty cones of power with diamond points, in the figure of the hot, unsexed Vestal who starts from her seat, cruel as the hyena, stainless as the ermine, to demand the suppression of mercy. The works of this single painter embrace more of these magnificent “ situations” than the works of any epic poet, any novelist, any dramaturgist, who lives among us. He meets the literary producer on his own ground, and distances him. Beneath the row of Vestals, in the bleeding sand, the stout “ Myrmillo” from Gaul, with the fish on his helmet, has over- thrown the light-limbed net-thrower, the “ Retiarius.” The vanquished youth, a pathetic and delicate figure, extends his hand for pity. But Domitian on his throne (another of our artist’s inimitable bits of drama) is crushing a fig in his mouth with consummate indifference ; and when he turns to the holy nuns — they are with one accord mad for his death. Poor youth ! vile maidens ! infernal Roman holiday ! It will soon be time for the Goths to rise and glut their ire. The painter has selected for his interpretation of the Roman phrase pollice verso that which best suits the rules of artistic composition. Doubt- less, among his archaeological friends and advisers, he found those who supported the theory he has illustrated. A greater number believe that the gesture of condemnation in the circus was made by turning in the thumb towards the heart. The attitude adopted is so much more effective in art, however, that it is most probable the painter would have calmly continued to use it, if the demonstration of its inaccuracy were ever so clear. To show the creator’s estimate of his subject’s importance, it may be stated that the central group of this picture— -the gladiator from Gaul bestriding his prostrate foe — was modeled by the hands of the painter on a colossal scale, and sent in bronze to the Paris Exposition of 1878, where it decorated the central vestibule of the Trocadero palace. The other admirable “Gerome of the first class,” in this collection is “ The Collaboration,” a delightful group, showing Moliere shrugging his shoulders almost above his head as Corneille reads the manuscript of Psyche. To make the collaborating memoir complete, there might have been inserted two more figures, Lulli, who composed the music of Psyche, and Quinault, who wrote the Iniermedes. This scene is char- acterized by those attitudes of complete abandonment which Gerome continually discovers, with better luck than any other chronicler of manners— so very careless, they make you notice their carelessness. Several of Gerome’s pictures contain these gestures of felicity and naturalness; the augur twirling a crozier with his little finger extended, the actor absently bending a wand in the Greek theatre-scene, Moliere resting a couple of fingers on the king’s table in the “ Louis XIV and Moliere,” and the same poet settling down between his two shoulders in an inimitable type of meditation in the present picture. Only painters or sculptors know how hard it is to produce an entirely new and at the same time satisfactory pose in art ; the Greeks, when they had the luck to discover one, repeated it to weariness ; and our painter has had a great number of these pieces of luck, not only with happy and observant trivialties, but with atti- tudes of greater dignity and beauty, such as thbse of his “Phryne” and “Cleopatra.” And Gerome, when he has discov- ered such a novelty, knows how to make it a permanent gain and possession in the history of design, by insisting on it with the most finished graces of firm drawing and modeled perfection. A still more ample scene than that of the “ Pollice Verso” is the “ Roman Chariot-Race,” an imperfect, overstretched, harshly colored effort of Gerome’s, into which, however, are crowded enough of study and knowledge to make the fortune of a dozen ordinary pictures. This canvas, which was not finished till the year of Mr. Stewart’s death, had been lingering on the easel for ten years previously. It was the fortune of the present writer to see it there in 1866, with the concentric oval terraces merely indicated in lines of chalk. In this con- dition it looked like a plan of some ambitious scheme in land- scape-gardening. “ It will possibly be the hanging gardens of Semiramis?” I asked the master. “ No,” corrected Gerome, with all courtesy, “ it is intended for the Circus Maximus.” The composition, evidently finished with a drag and a weariness of spirit, is the worst in color and quality of any Gerome of ■/ . 1 THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART 25 its pretensions. The benches of scarlet-robed senators are particularly offensive in hue. Only a figure of a slave leaning against the wall, a driver breathing hard through the leather thongs wound round his breast,— only some accidental and episodical personage here and there gives us the refreshment of a good, living, photographic reality of the Gerome kind. Yet the erudition of the picture is quite encyclopsedic, from the reconstruction of the architecture to the ordonnance of the game, from the tribune of the emperor to the obelisk erected in the middle (presented by Augustus, and now in the Piazza del Popolo) and the egg-shaped goals, recalling the origin of Castor and Pollux, the guardians of all horse-tamers. Six or seven chariots are engaging in the race, showing that the artist imagines his scene to take place in later days, as at first only four cars were driven at a time. There are eight chariots engaged at once in the racing mosaic from Lyons (cited by Fair” and Meissonier’s “1807,” is an exemplification of the remarkable interest taken by the collector in representations of the horse. It is a fact to be noted that this connoisseur, whose taste was positive, individual and intelligent, should have collected the most famous portrayals of the noble animal pro- duced by his age, although his personal fancy in horseflesh never got beyond the showy driving-beast of the respectable “ gig-man.” By Boulanger, the friend and attentive follower of Gerome, there is ” The Appian Way in the Time of Augustus,” with flower-girls, princesses in sedan-chairs, and naked African slaves, in silver collars, beating off the beggar-boys. The badges worn by the black running footmen are sometimes found preserved in European museums, — one with a Christian symbol on it was seen at the Centennial Exhibition in the Castellani Collection. Onesimus, whom St. Paul “sent again” to his POLLICE VERSO. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY F. D. BRISCOE AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. L. GEROME. Guhl and Kohner, Life of the Greeks and Romans) The participants in the circus games were personages of a much higher order than those who composed the gladiatorial contests. In older times the charioteers were free citizens ; afterwards this occupation, though never dishonorable, like that of the gladiators, was considered unworthy of a free Roman, and therefore descended principally to slaves and freedmen, who, previously to appearing in public, were trained at schools. Gerome seems to express this superiority in the capable, in- telligent heads of his charioteers, so different from the man- animal types of his gladiators in the “Ave Caesar.” Defective and plodding as the artist’s style seems in this slowly-matured canvas, compared with fresher masterpieces in a great gallery, it would be an absorbing parlor picture, and its temperate and classic treatment compares favorably with Wagner’s turgid scene of a similar game, remembered among the paintings at the Centennial and disseminated in a favorite photograph. Gerome’s “Chariot-Race,” with Mile. Bonheur’s “Horse master, probably wore such a badge of servitude as is depicted on these velvet-skinned bondsmen. The chief merit, after all, of this careful work of Boulanger’s — one of his very best — is that it is a foil to Gerome on his own ground, and makes that master — who is not without accusations of dullness and insi- pidity—seem wonderfully classical, serene and statuesque. The difference between a work of style and a work wanting in style is that between one of the antique compositions of the Vesoul painter and such a pasticcio as this. A striking and popular picture is the “ Triumph of Ger- manicus,” or “Thusnelda,” yet it can hardly be said that it is the triumph of Piloty. This German Delaroche, along with a most learned and craftsmanlike talent of composition, is given to artificial-looking and varnishy schemes of color, disjointed efforts at brilliancy in detached spots, and pompous compo- sitions of personce evidently arranged for a theatrical fifth-act. As a narrative, an eloquent piece of studio Gibbon, the picture must be admitted to succeed. It represents the triumphal 26 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. entry into Rome accorded to Germanicus by Tiberius in May, A. D. 17. Tiberius really saw in the occasion a telling adver- tisement of himself. He and his general had prevailed over the Germans, whereas Augustus and his general had been baffled. It was not for Tiberius to be compelled to go about with long hair and beard, dashing his gray head against palace walls at night, and groaning, “Varus! Varus I give me back my legions !” The victory of Germanicus on the Elbe corrects that earlier distasteful counter-victory which Arminius, the prince of the Cherusci, had obtained over Rome in the three days’ fight in the Teutorberg forest. Placed on high in Piloty’s picture, Tiberius caresses in his soul the idea of this eclatant achievement of his reign, as from his towering throne he watches the shadow of the triumphal arch fall over the advan- cing form of Germanicus. Arminius, it is true, has escaped, and is not there to adorn the triumph. But Arminius’s wife, Thusnelda, whom the barbaric chief had won by violence in early days, is forced to walk in the procession, leading by the hand her little son, Thumelicus. As she had not been taken prisoner of war, but had been rendered up by her treacherous father, Segestes, it was unknightly and dishonorable in Ger- manicus to introduce her among his captives. There was an anterior episode in the history which might equally tempt the Piloty pencil, — that earlier giving-up of Thusnelda to the Romans, soon after the Teutorberg battle, which formed the previous disgrace of the oft-abased, proud Thusnelda. Her father, to win favor with the Romans, had entrapped the vic- torious Arminius with Thusnelda to his castle, even while his son-in-law was flushed with triumph. Arminius escaped, but Thusnelda was conducted like a captive by Germanicus to the Roman camp. “ She shed no tear,” says Tacitus. ‘ She disdained any word of supplication. With, her arms folded under her bosom, she glanced at her figure, which revealed how soon she would become a mother.” This glimpse of the uncompromising behavior of a savage princess on an earlier occasion gives the artist his clue for the delineation of her mien and temper in the subsequent humiliation. Strong and haughty, enveloped in her yellow hair, she strides into Rome like one of the Erinnys. The pageant, of which she is the principal jewel, Piloty makes a demonstration of Roman theatric art of the first century, and it is a superb stage-grouping, as it were, of trophies, strange barbaric figures, shaggy animals of the North, and blase Italians condescending to admire a Roman holiday. Already for months past the battle-painters and landscapists of the capital have been busy painting the wars of Germanicus, and the scenes of German hill and river where they were fought. These representations of battle and land- scape, to glorify the triumphing general, were borne through the city, and some real captives, with some fictitious Germans in masks, were dragged in before the car. Among the trophies were the Roman eagles that had been re-taken from the Teutons. A German chief, in fact,— for the barbarian ranks were full of traitors, among whom was the brother of Arminius — had given the Romans word where to find their eagles, in the “ holy Tann,” the fane and sanctuary of the tribe. This fact explains the insolent feeling manifested in the foreground incident of the picture, where a Roman legionary leads by the beard a gray priest of the Tann, wreathed with sacred oak, and tottering with debility and shame; Thusnelda herself, follow- ing behind, is scarcely a more striking illustration of Roman outrage. Yet still more dishonorable and debased than any mere exhibition of Latin harshness was the cynical, sycophant figure of Thusnelda’s father, Segestes, introduced into the triumph as a Roman ally, his giant form descried sitting near Germanicus as a friend, and looking on while his daughter and grandson were led in chains. Piloty is placed at present, in his. honored old age, like a door between two chambers, the ancient Munich art and the modern Munich art. The spiritual and mystical painting of Overbeck, Cornelius, and Kaulbach is behind him ; the pompous decorative school of Makart and Gabriel Max, the rich savory realism of Leibl, the analytical portraiture of Gebhart, are before him, and in a sense proceed from him. He inhabits his official chambers in the painting-academy of Munich, from which he rarely condescends to issue for the instruction of the classes, like the trusty porter of a palace in times of revolution, who feels that chaos would enter if he were to open a door or release a lock. The last traditions of the famous Munich school created by King Ludwig are in his custody. With the very development and improvement of that school has come the necessary era of innovation, which seems to him like the advent of heresy and riot. Himself an emancipator from the false-classic of Kaulbach, he sees the pupils of his academy leading an advance to different directions, one with a exquisite- ness of technic superior to his own, another with a feeling for grace and delicacy which make his work heavy by contrast , another, with profounder ideas of subject and more brilliant invention, and all in one way or another putting him in the wrong. Meanwhile, his scientifically-planned tableaux will ever have a value, in fact they but await his death to become classic. Only, they are already a little past the mode, reminding u.s not so much of our own era as of the era when Scribe’s dramas and Delaroche’s death-scenes were in fashion. The one thing that an age cannot forgive is the satiety of admiration forced upon it by its famous men. It is for the succeeding age to pick out the really great. •-\ < ; v^' - , ' - ' , !•' iX- THk COLLtCJlON OF MRS. A. T. STklfART. V G firom FnuKc. ibc **1807** of McttACMitcr amvcd m New Yoric about the fir»c <tt March. 1876, after ha%'Uit{ been •bowa 10 the VtetMU KapoMtum a* aa imperirci picture, with chalk mark* asd other «uch •caft«khii|( acroM It* ktx Sir Richard Wallace wa* the tfHeodioc purcbaicf. and on h»« dccltiitfii; to meet the anm'a auftmcnlcd charge, thki rooiid uMm, oC Mxty thou* aaud dollar* Itacreuicd to eighty thouwuid. it i* aaid, by occhaage aad curtoma duty) waa oftered by Ukgrafih aad the oiaitrrwofk of the art>«t‘a Ide taeured to AmcrKa. The MM • MM* •* * cMvma h eight feet acroM by ft>or and a half feet high, and the larger human ftgure* m femt moaaure eighteen mchca m height The lubjcct wa* at 6nt known a« * FnedUnd,* but ftir thi* inle the pamter aulwtituted the dale of FrfedUnd A* g la no battlc-pKture, g wa* a happier thouglg to give the deftmtkin at an epoch than the deaignaiwn of an action. The , topic of the iccne n merely a cemnomal review, but the hia* | lory of many a battle I* condenaed in the capreminn of the ■ aokhev* a* they meet thew chicftam It ia the cwbnmatian of | Napoleon’* fartunca. Dictator of Kumpe. owner of France, the Kmperte 1* repreaented aa reviewing the troop* that have won him hi* aupremacy. It i* rather the ftictgiou* nrength of devotion than the natural energy of mwacle and auicw. which elevate* thcae ■ohhen into thcar attgude of triumph and enihu* aiaMn At the mocnent cfcpwted thcae troopa roatty are. aa a wrger pong* out in A’/frf. at the larc eatremgy of phywcM endurance Hut fer the ammaling ftirce of loyally and worahip they would be eahaualed wgh feligue The rampaiga agamn the Rttaamn* ha* gone on dunng ten day* wghout rvpom or truce. In the environ* of Fncdtand the bank ha* laated nmr hour* The French have taken trven Aag*. a hundred and twenty cannon, and kdkd or wnunded or unpmoned aurty thouaand of the enemy Akaander of Ruiaaa haa been forced to *ne few pence. Kxhauitcd. victnnon*. the army ftle* befere Napoleon It waa the wnter"* chief care, m announcuig m ephemera of the day the arrival at the picture, to lay iCfeaa on the «ympa* ihetk connection e*(abl**hed by the pamter between the flobd ftgwre of Napoleon and the energetic one* of the tokhery In regard to paaiagc* of the preaem work winch ought pomdily itnke the render aa having an echo more or kaa reengnuabk. g may hr obicrved here, once ftir all. that any otation of familiir kjighah 1* alway* from the tnewbrabona of the preaent author, and mcun no obbgalKm to the better irnt of any other wrger; to much for the aettmg at red of the alert memory of the render who may Rniev hi* cniertamcr «o fer aa to recolkct the oarher urdigi of one whoar hfe ha* been lived among the work* with which tlua hook la concerned, and who haa wnttm 28 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. about some of them very often. As to the “ 1807,” it was his comment on the first view of the picture : “A painter has perhaps never represented a composition of a general and his army in which the mind or feeling seems so homogeneous, in which the leader reposes in the sympathy of his troops so like a soul in a body. What is most perfectly represented by M. Meissonier is this flash of living communion from the reviewing general to his troops, who howl in a frenzy of raging triumph. But for the establishment of this unity of incident between the army that rushes and the head that reposes and thinks, the painting would resemble a mere ordinary sham-fight or review of cavalry.” The Emperor, placed on a hillock, is surrounded by his Etat-major and by his Marshals, Bessieres, Duroc, and Ber- thier. At his left and behind, Nansouty waits with his division for the moment to wheel into line. Further on appears the Old Guard, with its bearskin caps and white breeches. Na- poleon, on a white horse, makes a salutation; in fact, there just arrives, like the cataract of some mighty river, the Twelfth Regiment of Cuirassiers, galloping as in a charge. The earth trembles, and from hundreds of grizzled moustaches arises the cry, “Long live the Emperor!” At the head of his regiment, the Colonel of the Twelfth is passing the chief, and is depicted in the act of uttering his shout of loyalty; standing in his stirrups, his body pressed against the pommel of his saddle, he rises to full height so as to give more effect to his salutatipn. It would be hard to put more truth in a movement or more expression in an attitude. Further off, at the corner of the picture, a “ clairon” or bugler, with yellow uniform frogged with brandebourgs, dashes forward so as to get into the first rank. Placed at Napoleon’s right hand, in the foreground, are the four guards composing the avant guard of the imperial escort. They keep in the most rigorous military attitude, their sabres in their fists upon the thigh, the blades pointing to their shoulders, their energetic faces divided in two by their level moustaches, their heads plunged into broad bearskins, their sinewy figures dressed in yellow breeches and red dolmans. The foreground is devoted to the cuirassiers, who succeed each other as in a frieze, the light catching on their armor, the dust lying like velvet on their boots, and their galloping horses thrashing the soft Spring wheat of the fields near Friedland. The individual meaning and disposition of each animal is so consistent and so perfectly expressed, that we study the whole cavalcade of beasts with separate interest, as a portrait-gallery of notable specimens ; it is a family portrait-gallery, however. The steeds, howsoever colored and moved, are all of one strain, and obviously so many masquerades of Meissonier’s favorite horse Tivoli. The type is good and serviceable, not heroic ; the honest business way in which the brutes labor forward is quite true to ordinary life, while it has nothing of the exalted ambition of racing horses. The choice of bay for a majority of the animals is also a piece of seeming favoritism on the artist’s part, though the necessity for a united tone in the picture sufficiently explains it. The colonel’s horse in front, with its uncommon color, is defined with the warmth and exactitude of a copper casting; it is in full action, and shows its muscles in such clean relief that it seems flayed — a Saint Bartholomew of a barb without a skin. The tendons attaching the humerus to the chest, in full salient action, are designed in a masterly manner; the knees and lower legs are well-drawn systems of knots and cordage. We are asked to take a loupe and inspect the eye, and if we have ever sounded with the sight the depths of the eye-ball in a real horse, we cannot but recognize the same translucidity of clouded jelly. The neck is covered with a net of starting veins like a delicate lace ; and the free, forward carriage of the head could only be assumed by a leader, and not by any fol- lower, in a race. The animal is set in the midst of the picture, in full foreground, as solid as the bronze of Verrochio at Venice, and seems to glow with some appropriated pride of the painter who could achieve such a real thing. Behind comes the gray steed of the bugler; it is also in profile and quite as true, the rank and file gallop back of these conspicuous figures with THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T STEWART. 29 individual action and expression. Not to be too categorical in tor’s left, in the group of staff-officers, lowers his head and distinguishing the claims of a large company of animals, the snuffs at the invaders with a horse’s true curiosity and suspicion; THE COLONEL OF THE TWELFTH CUIRASSIERS. FIGURE FROM '•'1807." BY J. L. E. MEISSONIER. heads of two more horses may be pointed out as singularly true to nature. The steed bearing the marshal to the specta- and the middle horse of three in the avant garde — all of them admirably foreshortened — is being checked as he designs to 30 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. trot ahead of his comrades, upon which he raises his heavy | skull and tosses it about with that superfluous air of resentment and mighty agitation about nothing to be remarked in the scale of emotions of his kind. Further back, Napoleon, with his face of a Greek archon, sits his white horse in the company of his band of self-made adventurers. He is in a gray coat, and the long locks of his earlier period are cut away as short as possible, modeling the perfect vault of his brain. Flis right hand, from the wrist of which idly hangs a little switch, gravely lifts a cocked hat. The head and shoulders are cut clean against the sky. The staff, a group of minute portraits, form a crest against the clouds of the horizon. There is a rush of artillery to the left, with cannons being dragged about by four horses, which nobody pays any attention to. One of the gun- carriages has slipped its axle and lies wrecked at the left of the foreground, the brass gun being protected by the pacing ; guards and prevented from breaking some brave cavalry-steed’s legs. The rushing pelt of the horses in front is the purpose of the theme, but the ground on which they exercise is painted with a mastery that makes it an individual study and picture. The passage of more than one previous charge has torn up the grain, which nods against the frame at the base of the painting, and the execution of this bit of still-life — if it be not wrong to call so what is a piece of maddened and almost sensitive agitation, expressing in itself the heat of preceding rushes across the field — is a lesson for painters. The eddies of tossed wheat are designed with breadth and sense of motion ; where the wheeling artillery has tracked them, they make a series of concentric curves, like breakers in a bay. With legs plunging through the ocean of grain, pass the horses of the cuirassiers. Along the front of the picture they are viewed in profile, but behind, across the innumerable ranks, they are seen coming on full-face; the direction is a semicircle around Napoleon and his staff; and it is impossible to notice the treat- ment of Napoleon and the etat-major until these troops have been examined, for they are in fact the heroes of the scene. History used to paint the general always in the foreground, the soldiers operating or suffering in the distance with a sense of agony repressed by modesty; the present age insists on having the men in front and the commander in the distance; and Meissonier seems to point to a sort of battle-piece of the future in which the cavalry-horses shall be the sole heroes, and the human element altogether subordinated; for, indeed, his | horses are the chief thing in the affair, the men being all alike j and all like Horace Vernet’s. Meissonier labored fifteen years at this picture. Each personage, though never so insignificant, was made the subject of a separate painting, finished with care, and in no sense a sketch : there are movements of an arm which have only been arrived at after a series of designs which are each admirable morsels of painting. The costumes and trappings were made by tailors, bootmakers and saddlers. Meissonier modeled with his own hands small horses in wax, which were afterwards completely harnessed, so as to produce the rounded and solid optical effect desired. In order to study the galloping horse in full motion, the artist used to travel on a railway laid down for his use in his own park at Poissy, and while his model would go through his paces alongside, make paintings and drawings after nature of the action of the motor muscles and the alternation of the hoofs. It is rightly felt that America has secured an artistic trophy in the possession of this great canvas of “1807,” which it is not likely its author will ever equal now. Its merit, how- ever, is rather in a general accumulation of triumphs and difficulties overcome than in simplicity, breadth, ease, and largeness of construction. In fact, Meissonier is never so happy in open-air, landscape situations as in the interior effects of his earlier period. His determination to conquer in open sunlit scenes seems to have been forced on him by emulation with Fortuny, whom in luminous quality he never equals. The other Meissoniers in the Stewart collection are on his more familiar cabinet scale. One is called “A Reminiscence of the Franco-Prussian War.” Two orderlies, with tall cylin- drical caps, such as we see on Nepomuc in the Grande Duchesse, each leading a horse beside his own, interview a sentinel at the door of a barrack. In the blaze of hot sunshine, the buttocks of the iron-gray horse led by the orderly who engages the sentinel in talk are positively real, muscular, and solid, to an extent of perfection scarcely realized by any of the horses of the “1807.” The projecting lintel over the door casts its own triangular masses of shadow, which, though trans- parent, seem chopped out, thick and real; and on the whole Meissonier succeeds better in this picture with the realistic effect of intense daylight than in anything else he has done. The laurels of the “ Roman-Spanish” painters are what in reality cast these sharp, real and true shadows into the manipulation of Meissonier; except for their emulation he would have remained content with the degree of tempered and conventional sunshine seen in his “Solferino” of the Luxembourg collection. Another of the Stewart Meissoniers is remarkable as showing one of his very few female studies. A beggar-woman, carrying a baby, asks alms of a gentleman on horseback, who wears the half-moon chapeau or claque of the Directoire, and reins in his steed, with that air of perfect horsemanship best known to our painter, to confer the gratuity. The scene takes place in a public garden, with small regular trees like those of an orchard, and the soft flash of summer sunlight is frankly and brilliantly conveyed. The remaining picture here by this famous and dreadfully expensive artist is the portrait of himself, a labored but in- felicitous and purplish piece of color in aquarelle, showing his fine gray Spanish-looking head in three-quarters view. It was a present sent to Mr. Stewart along with the “ 1807” — a gift as between equals from the paint-monarch to the money-king —a bit of paper signed in the artist’s manner, in exchange for the three-thousand-eagle-power check. A prize for the collection is the exquisite society-subject by the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, entitled “The Con- fidence.” This artist is the interpreter of the nineteenth-century woman; he records her graces, her airs, her caprices, her temper, with that infallible and sympathetic acumen, that dis- cernment of his siecle, to be noted in the comedies of Alfred de Musset. The poet who demonstrated that “A Door ought to FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JEAN LEON GEr6me, IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART, NEW YORK. THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 31 be either open or shut, who wrote A Cupyice^ and poured from his heart the Confessio?i of a Son of the Century, died just too early to have recognized a twin art-brother in the painter Stevens. In this picture the “ Confidence” is extended by a beautiful lady to her friend, as both return at daybreak from a ball to the privacy of the chamber. On the lamp-stand, illumined by the saffron rays that stream through the glass shade, lies a letter, the evidence of a temptation, or a treason, or a desertion. The woman whose heart-pain is caused by the missive casts herself on a seat and buries her face in the knees of her friend, who stands sadly regarding the written record of folly or cruelty. Hand in hand — the heavy cashmere sliding FAC-SIMILE OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ALFRED STEVENS. from the polished shoulders that emerge from the ball-dress, and the jewels rising and falling over two unquiet hearts — the friends clasp each other between tl^ garish artificial light that reveals a perfidy and the truthful gray dawn that crisps the window-curtain as it enters. “The warmth of those glowing hands which the lady holds in her own,” says Camille Lemon- nier, describing the picture, “has softened her timid heart. The whole chamber is filled with a desolate sorrow. A lamp illumines the two friends with a golden translucence that lends a gentle reflection to the velvet skin and moderates the glitter of the ornaments.” Genuine and sympathetic as it is, the spectator feels that this is Parisian emotion ; a sense of exquisite manners and of metropolitan breeding, a reticence of any de- monstration that might exceed the bounds of the mournfully- agreeable, environs these personages with an habitual restraint that they would never think of breaking. The modish per- fection of the dresses, the furniture, assists in conveying the spectator, as by a flash, to Paris. If he happens to be one of those priggish beings called students of international social science, he may compare this study of manners with Thack- eray’s in Vanity Fair, where Becky Sharp shows to Amelia the note which discloses her husband’s perfidy, at the end of the history. The two Englishwomen behave, over that letter, with so much hearty English expansion ; there is a starting up and sinking down on beds, and a marching up and down the room, and, of course, a comfortable cup of tea on the candle- stand ! “’Emmy’s head sank down, and, for almost the last time in which she shall be called upon to weep in this history, she commenced that work. Her head fell to her bosom, and her hands went up to her eyes; and there, for awhile, she gave way to her emotions, as Becky stood on and regarded her.” It is not only that the circumstances and characters are not identical, but the whole tone is so different, that we breathe the air of different countries in the two scenes. This picture is painted by Stevens in the slight airy manner he has picked up in Paris : when he first felt the influence of his friend, Baron Leys, he colored in a lower key, and with much more unction and richness of style. In contrast with those earlier, more sonorous works, the painting of his French studio seems like goziache ; it is elegant, slight, sensitive, witty and tender; but it is thin, compared with the rich positiveness of his Belgian days, and superficial compared with those occasions of his past, when he would imitate the texture of velvets and silks, the peachy bloom of cheeks, and the muffled depth of tapestries. Yet this artist is completely masculine, a brain of the male gender. His women even, all adorned with grace as they are, betray their origin. They are subtle in a positive way, and feminine from a masculine appreciation. Their creator’s muscular hands, in the work of sculpturing them, have left a little of their own animating vigor around the tender curves. Instinctively he has modeled them from the point of view of his own health and well-being. It should be somehow evident from his female types what manner of man he is. Alfred Stevens is broad-shouldered, with massive trunk, and the appearance of a cavalry-colonel ; but the face with its warm brown tint that matches with the hazel eye, the knitted forehead, the energetic and expressive mouth, reveal perfectly the man of modern enlightenment, the man of contemplation and of action in one, the man who has lived out his art. His head is strong, and solidly planted on the neck; the body supple and active; as for the hands, those marvellous utensils of his labor, they are broad, taper, sensitive, resting in your own with a gentle and genial weight and a flattering good- nature, while you have time to feel all their magnetism. The man, in short, is such as his paintings should explain him to be, and what renders the parallel still more complete, is the framework in which the man is set. This framework, in which he lives and moves, is the prettiest imaginable house in the rue des Martyrs, with its garden smothered in foliage, its apartments stifled with draperies and tapestry, its pattering of 32 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. feminine feet on the stairways, its outlook on the world of feminine fripperies ; what with rare furniture and potteries, and cabinets overflowing with China and Japan, nothing is wanting to constitute it the typical home of a modern painter. Such is the artist, with his surroundings, of the “ Confidence,” a more important specimen of one of the most exquisite talents of the day than can readily be found elsewhere in the United States. A scene of village life, by Knaus, of his best period, is the finest prize that peinture de genre can yield to the researches of the connoisseur. Mr. Stewart succeeded in obtaining one of the most brilliant examples of this master that our country can show. “ The Children’s Festival” (4x3 feet) is a tumul- urchins is as huge as that of the children for whom Werther’s Charlotte cut the bread-and-butter. Here are healthy, glut- tonous lads, and little greedy girls demurely gratifying an intense and all-comprising appetite. A large Danish wolf-dog, acting as a calm and assured critic in the matter of sau.sage, quietly pushes his enormous head, like a disturbing silent natural force, between the careful elder sister and the baby she feeds in her lap. At the little octagon table in front, where this doggish parenthesis intrudes himself, another little fat, overdressed elder sister, the prettiest of gluttons, lifts her head to stare at the dog, without thinking it necessary to interrupt her steady spooning from the plate of victuals ; her wineglass. FRAGMENT OF “THE CHILDREN’S PARTY.’ FAC-SIMILE OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL FAINTING BY LUDV.TG KNAUS. tuous scene, where a hundred figures are collected without crowding. Ludwig Knaus is the most famous representative of the typical Dusseldorf anecdote-painters, and in fact an old resident and pillar of that city, though more recently acquired by the bribe of a professorship to Berlin. Here the ever fresh and charming humors of child-character are spread before us by the hand of one who is a master in the construction of innocent vaudevilles. Wit without a tinge of license, satire that is never dull, yet never unpleasantly knowing, snaps and sparkles through the whole scene. In one of those large- roomed country houses common in Germany, are laid a series of tables, where are seen rows of smug German children, the girls with hair in quaint top-knots, the boys with their flaxen locks tucked up in the shortest and most abortive of pigtails, and lustrous with pomatum. The period is that of Goethe’s youth, we may suppose, and the capacity of the it may be noticed, is almost empty; a satiated curly-head behind her dangles a morsel to tempt a large tom-cat, while a gigantic baby, with stained mouth, crams diligently with both hands, and a pair of sleek-headed boys fight tenaciously for the possession of a plate. The long table in the middle dis- tance accommodates an older class of girls, in quaint preco- cious mob-caps, or with hair stuck prettily with a rose; behind, by-the-by, is an endless tableful of snuff-taking and health- drinking elders, and this middle-distance table, with its mob- capped little damsels, only repeats the flirtations and gossips of the adult one. “Wie die Alten sungen so zwitschern die Jungen” — as the old cock crows the young one blows. A broad-faced pug-nosed boy, at the end' of the board, struggles with an infantine coquette for a kiss ; a youth with fine and supple visage, cut out thus early for a comedian or funny man, cranes over from the other end of the table to snap his finger THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 33 at the incident and let off some dry witticism, while various | girls, all with their mouths open, watch the theft of the kiss with an enjoyable sense of scandal and rapture. In a retired spot to the left, at a proper distance from these trivialities, a I brindled cat is attending with strict earnestness to the real business of life; having appropriated an enormous morsel somewhat beyond her capacity, she is getting it through her throat by shaking her head upward in a series of jerks, after the manner of her kind — the anatomy of the felis family having forgotten to provide for her any throat-muscles to dis- tribute the food discriminatingly downward, so that she has to effect her replenishment by this awkward shaking-up of all the upper part of her body. Who has not seen a great cat thus gormandizing in character, settling her contents as we settle a potato-bag by shaking the mouth, her unamiable lips hanging at the corners with a purse-like expansion, and hissing and lisping as she manages her breath among the descending boluses of food? But who ever painted these noises and struggles before Knaus? Who, again, has ever better managed a tumultuous composition in a painted canvas? — the heads, the figures, each a separate jewel of accuracy, definition, individuality, emerge behind each other with distinctness yet without formalism, while they are washed with the generous light and air of a comfortable home interior. It would be proper to imagine outside the steeple and the steep roofs of a sleepy Ger- man village. The solacing, innocent, good-humored charm of genre-painting in its best expression has never been carried further. To snatch from the life these graphic sketches of innocent joys, to render them interesting, to carve and point them with this degree of sharpness that makes them as divert- ing as the wickedest Paris comedy, is the triumph of the painter on the inventive and “ literary” side ; that done, and his brilliant little drama arranged so far as its choice of inci- dent goes, he comes forward with another and more legitimate triumph, the triumph of pure technic; few painters of the morceau, few of those who restrict themselves to mere quality and determined absence of theme, can go further in consum- mation of modeling, color, relief of vigors, comprehension of values. Both as an invention, and as a painting-problem, the ” Children’s Festival” is a masterpiece that has hardly been exceeded since the days of De Hoogh and Jan Steen. Edouard Detaille acquired his first medal in 1869, and his Salon picture of this j^ear, now in the Stewart collection, was that for which he received it. It is called “ Le Repos pendant la Manoeuvre en Camp a Saint-Maur.” This was the real beginning of his fame. On its appearance it was accepted as the herald of a new power in the art of painting. It was highly praised by Theophile Gautier, then the acknowledged leader of the art-criticism of the world, and the regular critic of the Journal Officiel. Edmond About, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and Paul Mantz, in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, exerted too their polished pens in its praise. Indeed, its finished elegance hardly spoke of the tyro, and justified the warm eulogy of contemporary appreciation. Detaille, born at Paris in 1848, entered the Lycee Bonaparte, and after following with considerable brilliancy the cours of the college, took his degree of “ Bachelier.” That was but four years before the exhibition of this finished picture, so that hardly fifty months elapsed between the youth’s school-boy stage and his appearance with a masterpiece in the walk of art. While at college, however, the natural bent of the painter was strongly marked, the pencil sketches which he was in the habit of turning out during the wearisome imprisonment of a French school course being still treasured by some of his classmates; these drawings, true to FIGURES FROM “THE CHILDREN’S PARTY.” PAC-SIMILE OF A STUDY BY THE ARTIST, LUDAVIG KNAUS. his future tastes, almost invariably represented the habits and accoutrements of the military. The artistic tuition which developed young Detaille in such a brief time was due to the best accident imaginable for just such a character — a family friendship with Meissonier. Meissonier and the young col- legian traveled together in the south of France in 1867, the youth being by this time ensconced with the veteran artist as student and friend. A view of a nook in the fine studio of Meissonier at Poissy was exhibited by the pupil in the Salon of 1867, and two military pictures followed in 1868, “ Cuirassiers Shoeing their Horses on the Road to Antibes,” and “A Halt of Drummers.” The third painting of military life exhibited by Detaille was the present work. Faithfulness to nature, artistic conscience, gleam like the record of well-spent study-hours from edge to edge of this thorough-going canvas ; its stamp and seal are, technical fidelity. There is no grace of compo- sition, no pictorial emphasis ; instead, we have the almost hypochondriac scruple of the photographic machine, anxious and uneasy lest a gleam or a shade or a line should be missed. The troops of a well-ordered garrison are scattered about an 34 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. arid plain, in an interval between their exercises. The officers sit idly on well-governed, well-trained horses, with nothing better to do than exchange cigar-lights or smooth out the creases of their buckskin gloves. The privates, squatting on their knapsacks or stretched upon the scanty grass, suck their pipes, or toss up their canteens for a draught, or break a biscuit, or standing, watch beside their stacked bayonets. Their figures, a little too regularly studded about, like Hans Ander- son’s “ hardy wooden soldiers,” start up in their chessboard uniformity with all the necessary individuality, and, when you FAC-SIMILE OF A STUDY BY THE ARTIST, LUDWIG KNAUS. choose to look at them, show wonderful little thinking faces beneath their bearskin caps. One would hardly be struck by any evidence of youthfulness in the picture if the date were not known or noticed. The ability to paint the figure, whether of man or horse, seems nearly perfect; and any group selected from the broad tableau is masterly for breadth, roundness and realism ; still it is certain that Detaille, representing the same scene at his present epoch, would contrive a greater variety of happy accidents in the actions and tempers of the steeds, and would mass the men into groups of more dramatic contrast and more artful light and shade. But the picture is a training exercise. Few young men would have the self-command and discipline to go on carving cherry-stones to this interminable extent. As it was, indeed, Detaille, in dressing his minim military with all this exactitude of equipment, was only re- hearsing the knowledge he was soon practically to acquire in the very same garrison. Did he conjecture, when setting down with such minute and categorical particulars the incidents of camp-life at St. Maur, in a time of profound peace in 1869, that he would soon encamp as a volunteer on the same plain, summoned by the ambition of a combatant in a conflict then unforeseen ? The Prussian war broke out. At its first call to arms, Detaille enlisted, immediately joining the fourth army- corps under General Pajal, and soon returning to Paris and exercising with the troops kept in camp at St. Maur. Present at many of the succeeding engagements, he remained the artist under his military uniform, and enriched his note-book with vivid sketches in the intervals of engaging with the invaders. The stoutly-contested, hopeless skirmishes around the capital, which he has so graphically represented, might be described by the proverbial legend, “ all of which I saw, and part of which I was.” Towards the close of 1870 he was appointed secretary to General Appert, and was thus in a position to pursue with the strictest watchfulness all the vicissitudes of the conflict. His acquaintance with the environs of the metropolis was so accurate and topographical that he was in the habit during his secretaryship of assisting his general by drawing accurate maps of the roads in the vicinity, showing the positions taken up by the detachment of either army. His paintings after the collapse revealed these close studies of the engagements from the inside. One very terrible one depicted the butchery of a whole rank of soldiers by the discharge of a mitrailleuse ; it was an episode of the close and terrible action on the sides of the Marne, on the second of December, 1870, a deadly combat in which he had himself borne a part; with horrible fidelity he determined to show the terrors of war as they are, and drew a curtain from one of those scenes of havoc which nature and the compensations of existence render short of duration and for most of us invisible — the ground quite covered with a suddenness and surprise of death, corpses of those that have died standing and have omitted to fall, but that still plant themselves rigidly in the ghastliness of their quick taking-off, or of those that plunge in terrible attitudes and bruise themselves against the earth. In the period of surprised mortification that followed the short war, while Frenchmen were rubbing their eyes and asking if their dream of disaster was true, Detaille contrived a series of pictures perfectly in sympathy with the national sentiment, and able to extract a sort of grim irony from defeat. “ Nos Vainqueurs,” a biting sarcasm, showed the army of Jews, venerable Shylocks that followed the German troops out of Paris, and bargained as they tramped for the fine clocks which the latter carried off in their wagons. “ Hail to the Wounded,” a subject altered in uniform from French to Prussians and from Prussians to French, depicted in its final expression a chivalric example of Parisian politeness — the staff and troops of a brilliantly mounted and equipped French marshal doing homage to a bruised, tattered and broken band of German soldiers who are taking their wounded back to the battery — the French privates performing the military salute, as they would to some superior officer, and PBOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JOSEPH CASTIGLIONE, IN THE COLLECTION OP MRS. A. T. STEWART, NEW YORK. THE COLLECTION OE MRS. A. T. STEWART. 35 the marshal and his stafif raising their caps to these poor inglorious mercenaries. The later canvases of Detaille are a narrative of episodes and unpleasant little tragedies connected with the German war, spoiled in their art-significance by the sense of never amounting to anything, the mere brag and self- assurance of defeat ; they are in fact pages from the diary of a combatant in the conflict. What he will paint presently, when the memory of the invasion becomes a less vivid possession of his mind, or when the futility of this sort of boasting from the under man in the fight becomes obvious to him, it is hard to say. Up to this moment, the frightful war has been his pretext, expedient, and reason for existence ; yet he found striking subjects before such a combat was dreamed of — “An Engagement with the Cossacks in Russia,” “ Dandies in the Davilliers, under date of October 9th, 1874: “As for my labors, I will tell you merely of my picture, which measures I metre 37 centimetres in breadth by 72 centimetres in height. There are a good many figures, and I hardly know what title to give it. As it is in a manner the resume of my summer- sojourn, might I not call it ‘ Villeggiatura’ ? Indeed there are ladies on the ground, bathers diving into the sea, the ruins of an old castle, the wall of a garden, the entrance to a village, etc., etc. All this in full sunshine, and without , juggling away a single ray of it. Everything is bright and gay; how could it be otherwise, since we have passed our summer here so happily ? My picture is not finished yet ; I need a month of labor.” This picture was purchased at the sale of Fortuny’s posthumous works. Even in its unfinished state, observable AUTUMN MANOEUVRES: THE CAMP AT ST. MAUR. FAC -SIMILE OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY EDOUARD DETAILLE. Luxembourg Gardens,” “ Reading the Newspapers,” and “ In- terior of a Cafe.” There are themes of universal interest, apart from the abject dwelling on a grievance, which ought yet to attract the diamond point and the hair-trigger of his infallible talent. May it be long before another war solicits this painter of military actualities ! “ The Beach at Portici,” the last work of the regretted Mariano Fortuny, occupies a central position on the north wall of the gallery. During the final year of his life, 1874, having been ordered by his doctors to leave the unhealthy atmosphere of Rome for a more southern climate, the painter leased the Villa Arata, at Portici, near Naples, and removed thither with his wife and little boy and girl. “ I have seen here,” he wrote to Martin Rico, “a few motives which you alone could paint.” He soon occupied himself, notwithstand- ing the menaces of approaching death, with this large and glorious picture. Concerning it he wrote to his friend, Baron in the indecision of the foreground group of figures, which nevertheless form a tache against the distance of the proper value and effect, the “Portici” is one of the most valuable painting-lessons that the artist can possibly set before him. The parts that are complete seem to be merely first paintings, and to have never been dulled by working over ; the sketchy parts are so superbly suggestive that they perhaps teach more, as showing how a master lays in his work, than the elaborate results of finished toil would do. The slope of the pebbly beach occupies the foreground, its line receding from the eye towards the middle of the horizon; the blue Mediterranean being seen to the left, and the stained, lofty wall of a garden, vanishing in perspective, to the right. Some kind of a blackish ramshackle causeway stretches across to the water in the middle distance, and forms a dark spot to catch the eye in the centre of the canvas; otherwise the scene is a blaze of Neapolitan sunshine, to catch whose luminous quality, “with- 36 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. out juggling away a single ray of it” — this, instead of any tender gradation of conventional shades, or artificial poetry of composition, was the painter’s problem. The foreground shows modern female figures, Fortuny’s wife, and the nurse, and the little daughter, caparisoned with many flounces and in bright colors, lying about on the gravel with infinite desinvolture, the children clambering over the elders ; but these figures are the unterminated part of the composition, and more than one sunny-looking fair one, whom we should like to know better, consists merely of a pair of distracting silken ankles and a mystery of flounce. The fact is, however, that the very incompleteness of these forms is an effect astonishingly like nature. If a real beach were strewn with real personages in the sun, and we were to observe them at a distance which would make them the size of these paint- ings, we could not half the time make out their heads or their bodies, until they moved ; nature has this trompe d’oeil always ready to tease us, and nature’s trompe d’ceil is just what is most cunningly fac-similed in such a first sketch of Fortuny’s : he sketched sincerely the shapes that were obvious to the sight, instead of anxiously building up the forms constructively. Further on, to the left, where the light lap of the tideless indigo wave curls upon the shore, there are finished minute figures of naked bathing children, with cunning bead-like heads all carved with the proper features, that are so many miniature miracles. How solid and real this brown urchin, of a pin’s length, sprawls on the sand, and how admirably this back of a bare baby balances upon its little scant! Overhead is the real wonder of the picture, the deep cup of the clear ultramarine sky, in which are dissolving lumps of round cumulus cloud : you think them very white till you hold a visiting-card against them, when you find them quite blue or gray: this sky, painted at a sitting, apparently, and never teased or disturbed with corrections, is a laver of intense blue fire, and one of the most luminous bits of palette-knife work ever done, without doubt. By going over the canvas with your visiting-card test, you find there is not a speck of pure white in the picture, though it is as high in tone as any canvas you ever encountered. The other great Fortuny is “ The Algerian Snake- Charmer.” This is a contrast in tone to the first, being a twilight scene, covered in the distance with depth on depth of sultry, lurid shadow, resembling that of eclipse in being dewless and unaccompanied with the vapory effect of northern climates. The snake-charmer is a flexible, almost nude young fellow, lying on his breast on a rug; the snake, very much flattened as to his elastic ribs on the ground, and apparently crawling before the eye as you watch him, yawns in front, within a few inches of the dompteur’s head. A spectrally lean old Arab, his valuable countenance hooded in invisibility, squats just beyond with a mandolin, and a secretary-bird, or something of that kind, with a long stiff leg, and a beak like a butcher’s knife, meditates in front, with preternatural indiffer- ence for the snake. This incongruity of companionship be- tween reptile and prey assists the uncanny magic effect. In the sombre twilight scene the striped, peaked tents close in like a mountain range around the enchanted arena. This is still more a masterpiece of pure technic than the first. The flatness with which Fortuny makes the foreground figure lie on the ground and belong to it, the planes of his form being absolutely coincident with the plane occupied by the rug, and the true periphery of the earth being the true application and direction of that lean stomach of his, — the ease with which the bones of his legs roll from their sockets over one another as they cross, are all understood by a sapient doctor of design. FRAGMENT OF "‘THE SERPENT CHARMER.” FAC -SIMILE OF A DESIGN BY F. D. BRISCOE FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY M. FORTUNY. This picture, a work of the year 1870, is one of the achieve- ments of the nineteenth century which may be confidently put beside any old master of the past. Fortuny, in fact, will probably be estimated by futurity as the real artistic glory of the age. He is the sole painter of the time who -has dis- covered something new in the aspects of nature, instead of working over the old modes of former painters : only from century to century do these authentic creators, these innova- tors, spring into history — Fortuny with his perception of light, Rembrandt with his perception of shadow, Velasquez with his harmonious keeping-back of color and his reality of modeling, Raphael with his burden of perfect grace, Michael Angelo with his burden of ideas. Mariano Fortuny, born June II, 1838, at No. 36 in the Calle del Arrabal de Robuster in the little town of Reus, near Barcelona, died in Italy in 1874 and was buried with splendid pomp and universal lamentation at Rome. The tremendous robustness of his genius is especially apparent when we recollect that so far as he had any instruction it was completely of the old-fashioned, formal, academic order at Barcelona, and under the teachings of Claudio Lorenzale, a painter who followed the pseudo-antique, grandiose traditions of Overbeck. As well might a humming-bird be fostered in the nest of a penguin ! Fortuny was born to flash and lighten, to teach the world his vivid perception that objects are modeled by nature in facets of luminous color. He created a style, but died too young to perfect his taste and mature his selection of subjects. Everything he has left impresses one as a mere color-problem, like the assemblages of still-life objects a clever pupil heaps together for practice in the studio. What he would have taught to art, in the way of conception and doc- trine, can only be conjectured. He died a technist, a student, and has afflicted his age with a whole school of parodists. > 1^-1 Wifcntiri Vn^ ' • BARRIE, PHILADELPHIA. J THE COLLECTIO N OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 37 Of the Fortuny school is G. Boldini, an Italian resident in Paris, and perhaps, of those who have trained their eyesight painfully to the Fortuny spectacles, the one who has preserved the greatest originality and personal habit of vision. The finest of the Boldinis in the Stewart collection almost emulates the “Portici” of the great authentic master of the style. It represents “ French Washerwomen” kneeling at the river. The retrogression of their figures in perspective, as they crouch in a curved line along the circling bank, is admirable; they are so well in place, and so solidly put upon the ground. The white lumps of cloud, dissolving in the intense ether like loaf-sugar in brandy-coffee, are almost equally successful with those of the “ Portici,” though with less ease, felicity and precision in the manner of painting. Another Boldini represents “ The Park of Versailles in ousy,”) all which successively-named artists were personal friends and henchmen of the first, compose the tribute which this gallery pays to the striking clique of painters a la tache. By Eduardo Zamacois, a painter from Bilboa, who cast his lot with the French, and died at thirty-one, during the Prussian war, there is a celebrated picture, “Court-Jesters in the Ante- chamber,” a crowded composition of the year 1 867. Zamacois, with a certain Spanish brooding morbidness of temperament, painted a number of compositions in which he represented the weary pastimes of court-dwarfs and hunchbacks, even as Velasquez depicted the slave-satirist, Menippus, and the various dwarfs of Charles and Philip. We here seem to see the ante- chamber of King Francis the First, with his menagerie of court dwarfs and buffoons, in full conclave assembled. How bad the air is in this crowd of captive monstrosities, how plain COURT-JESTERS tN THE ANTECHAMBER* FAC-SIMILE OF A DESIGN BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY E. ZAMACOIS the Eighteenth Century,” with gallants making a leg to fine ladies in sedan chairs. The modish insincerity of their poses takes away from the seeming merit of an artist who really can design the figure very well. The decollete necks and pinch- able little arms of these microscopic puppets show great mastery in flesh-painting on the snuff-box-lid scale, and the blue glint of reflected light from the foliage is a hit at nature’s truth such as nobody began to perceive till the “ Spanish- Roman” school arose. A third Boldini, entitled “ Waiting,” one of his flirtation- subjects, not very deep in feeling or touching in sentiment — an idyl in the circle of ideas circumscribed by fashionable spheres — completes the selection and the concession made by Mr. Stewart from and to the school of papillotage which arose in his latter years with such imposing claims to notice. The Fortuny’s and the Boldinis, with a Pinchart, a Clairin, a Jiminez (“Mountebanks in a Spanish Square,”) and an Alvarez (“Jeal- the close menagerie-smell, how mephitic the atmosphere of despotism, in this chamber which is the type of its most tyrannical purlieus ! The painter comprehends how to deal the most obvious blow at feudalism by his own supreme resource, that of addressing the eye: with no other single scene could he make such a hit as by this scene of feudalism’s meanest swindle — that of purchasing its merriment from nature’s imprisoned abortions. In the early and experimental part of his career the sardonic Zamacois dwelt much on this aspect of feudal systems; his mind ran on the vagaries of Pedro the Cruel, and the miseries of Triboulet in “ Le Roi S’Amuse ;” and his mordant brush overran with many a bevy of wretched, objectless hunchbacks in splendid liveries and gilded cages, before he planted his downright antimonarchical blow in the picture which so offended Napoleon and which came to Amer- ica—" The Education of a Prince.” The present scene is his most elaborate effort in this kind, and his sarcastic humor finds 38 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. vent, too, in a notion that never occurred to a painter before, and would only occur to a Spaniard — he places the portraits of his artist friends, along with his own, on the shoulders of these unfortunates. Jules Worms watches the stand of paroquets, Berne-Bellecour throws the dice, — que sais-je? — the galaxy of smart painters who sprung to notice in the mushroom art- growth of the Second Empire are arranged in the comedy and decorated with the jester’s bauble. When we see the symmet- rical profiles, with grim mock-serious expressions, of these studio-comrades pedestaled upon the hunched backs of dwarfs, his own lean, laughing face in the ass-eared cap of a jester, and his pretty young brother’s fresh cheeks and curls over the fluted collar of a saucy page, we are fain to discern some meaning within the traced lines akin to the moody strictures of Goya — some half-uttered jibe to the effect that lesson of abnegation to themselves and of charity to the great world, came at length to develop a peculiar habit of syco- phantic flattery and cajolery in the friars sent out on their begging rounds. No longer content with a crust, and de- manding that with the austere authority of the church as a permission to the wordling to do a good action, the queteur came in course of time to adopt an air of sympathetic good- fellowship towards the rich whom he proposed to relieve of their superfluity. Such at least is our Spanish satirist’s view of the matter; the fat monk is an apt courtier, greasy and indulgent. The grandees — one of whom resembles Francis I — stretch their legs on the garden chairs, and look musingly on the base and smiling beggar, wondering how it might seem to be such a man ; gazing contemplatively down from their world into his. One fancies the sarcasm and the repartee, the fWf THE BEGGING MONK. FAC-SIMILE OF A DESIGN BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY EDOUARD ZAMACOIS. the art of the Second Empire was one of bondage and base- ness, certain to take its place in the history of painting as a form of gilded degradation, and able to bear the slave’s worst misfortune, that of contentedly smiling in slavery. Couture, too, in his own more rhetorical way, has represented Art under the Empire in the semblance of a poet chained in a splendid Roman banquet-hall. By Zamacois, also, is “Un Frere Queteur,” or “Begging Monk.” Here the court-jester acts as interpreter between the mundane selfishness of the upper orders and the clerical selfishness of the emissary from the church : he holds his painted bauble, with its ridiculous carved head, up to the nose of the donkey ridden by the monk (which lowers one ear and redoubles its edifying gravity,) and seems to ask, “ Which among us all is really the ass ?” The rule of humility established by the Franciscans, ordaining that the brothers should have nothing of their own, but live by begging, as a haughty tolerance of the great people, the acceptance of ignominy by the delighted recipient of the kicks and half- pence, and the wise jest of the buffoon resuming the situation in a Shakesperian witticism. Both the specimens of Zamacois are executed in a splendid perfection of drawing and color, with a nicety and precision of design hardly inferior to Meis- sonier, and a glow of light and air over rainbow costumes that is the special gift of the Spanish school. By Ramon de Madrazo, brother-in-law of Fortuny, and perhaps the best painter of modern womankind to hold up beside the Belgian Alfred Stevens, the gallery possesses a subject which enforces a commanding interest from its mere technic, the subject embodying one of those odd studies of Spanish manners which could hardly be invented outside of the unconventional back-yards of the Peninsula. The “ Lady Feeding a Monkey” makes you feel though, that, careless senorita that she is, who has run up to converse with her f FEOM THE ORIGrINAL PAINTING BY PETER OUTIN, IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART, NEW YORK. THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 39 Gibraltar ring-tail before she is dressed, whose linen is falling from her shoulders, and whose costume otherwise consists chiefly of an exaggerated girdle, she will be a pattern of Spanish morgtie and etiquette when the hour for full-dress arrives and the gentlemen begin to call. For the rest, this unconventional study, so truly Spanish in its bizarrerie, is a fine bit of color- harmony, and the riskiness of the toilet is purified by the chastity of the sensitive, delicate hues which make a melody over the canvas. Toulmouche’s ma.sterpiece, so far as memory serves, is “ The Serious Book,” a most painstaking, elaborate piece of fashionable enamel. Tribute being rendered to the extraordi- nary conscientiousness and brilliancy of its manipulation, the artistic miniature-manipulation, merely to declare once more that sermons are soporifics ? Lighter in tone than the paintings which earned his early reputation, Munkacsy’s “ Visit to the Baby,” a work of the year 1879, is an assemblage of the softest blonde hues, made emphatic and satisfying by the thick impasto of the German school of art in which he was bred. Munkacsy and Stevens have both been cajoled by Paris life and Paris influ- ence into painting in a higher key than they used originally. The furniture, floor-cloth, old square mirror, hanging tapestries and potted plants are the ordinary upholstering of a part of Munkacsy’s beautiful Paris studio, so that the picture is in so far a souvenir of the romantic artist’s belongings, over and THE VISIT TO THE BABY. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY MICHAEL MUNKACSY. guardian angel of art has the better chance to lift her warning finger, and ask whether or not this is an example of the bondage of the painters under Napoleon III which Zamaco'is satirized, and which was alluded to just now. This insatiate elaboration of an attenuated idea — this wealth of detail and research of microscopes applied to a painter’s jest, worthy at most of a sketch in La Vie Parisienne — is it not the sign of slavery, the badge of a painter’s humiliation ? The artist, in one of the most highly-finished boudoir scenes ever painted, simply asserts that it is the province of the serious volume to put modern folks to sleep. A large, handsome dame in a modish cap of lace, and another lady of slenderer proportions, have fallen upon each other’s shoulders in uncontrollable slumber, while the good book that has been trying to arouse them effects a cataract down their skirts unnoticed. The jest is not so bad; but is it observing the proportions of things to worry ’over the painting-niceties of Metzu and Breughel, and Mieris and Terburg, and produce at last a microcosm of all above the pretty little drama he introduces to give life to a motif which he has originally conceived more as a study of bric-a-brac than anything else. He has seated a young mother, pale and weak, and apparently just able to assume an upright posture, in one of the beautiful old-fashioned chairs ; laces and fine dressing-gown stuffs enfold her wasted form, and she glances with that well-known motherly eye, which never leaves sight of a particular object, at the little infant which lies in the nurse’s arms and which a pair of lady friends in street dress are examining. Try as he may, Munkacsy finds it impossible to make a Frenchman of himself There are twenty Paris painters who could give a stamp of greater elegance to the ladies, who could dress them in toilets more delicate and irreproachable, who could shed over the scene a more ex- quisite aroma of civilization, refinement and distinction. But there are few who could so play with light and air and texture, or whose work would be recognized, as this might be, as worthy of comradeship by Jan Steen and Pieter Hooghe. The 40 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. picture is in fact a masterly, but an ethnographically distant estimate of French life by a foreigner— a Hungarian. The SCHILLER AT THE COURT OF WEIMAR, FAC-SIMII.B OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY THOMAS ENDER. artist holds himself at arm’s length from the civilization he depicts. In looking at the canvas I seem to see a strong but refined Gipsy, who lifts up the French fallals to find what the embroideries and trimmings are made of, who describes the Worth dresses brutally from the point of view of their con- struction and foundations, — with accuracy doubtless, but with- out an atom of that French respect which would spare their frivolity. He seems to introduce his strange native types, Wallachian complexions, hooked Czech noses, and Danubian sincerities of expression, where a Paris society-painter would show but feminine refinements, redolent of the hothouse life of the saloon. “ Schiller at the Court of Weimar” is a picture by Ender. It was at Weimar that the author of Wallenstein plunged for the first time into the delights of literary society, and forgot that he had lived as a solitary scholar, in making the ac- quaintance of Herder, of Wieland, and of Goethe. Here, too, he enjoyed the favor of the Duke of Weimar, Charles August, whose acquaintance he had previously made at Darmstadt, and who subsequently put the poet on the pension list, and ennobled him. In Weimar, too, he met and married his wife, Charlotte von Lengefeld. He resided at the little capital at different periods, going thither from Mannheim first in 1787, at the age of twenty-eight, and returning in 1799, after having occupied the chair of historical professor at Jena. The scene is doubtless to be assigned to the later date, when Schiller, crowned with honors and fame, and exulting in the completion of his Wallenstein, enjoys with the docility of a truly tory spirit the patronage of the Ducal court. Charles August requires him to recite some thrilling dialogue from Wallen- stein, or perhaps to declaim the song of Thekla, that song which is exquisite in every modern language ; or possibly it is some passage filled with a more juvenile passion, from his earlier Don Carlos or The Robbers. The Duke and his courtiers listen absorbed. The dowager Duchess Amelia of Weimar, another influential protector of the poet’s, attends with her ladies. It is the culmination of a poet’s glory indeed, when, himself the actor of every successive part in his plays. he can thrill in his own person the hearts of those who are grandest and highest in the world of his respect. Through all the decorous pomp of this scene, which attains the grandeur of a historic ceremonial, the spectator of our race is apt to feel the twitch of an obstinate smile, when he remembers that the Weimar court of this very period, here represented as so opulent and splendid, is the one exquisitely satirized for its brag and strut by Thackeray, as the “ Pumpernickel” of Vanity Fair. The “ Cupid and Psyche” of Wilhelm von Kaulbach is an important specimen of a German master, a man of celebrity quite legendary in his own country, and of an almost unequaled rarity with us in the way of collected specimens. Of other moderns of his rank, America possesses examples in profusion ; of Kaulbach, hardly any. The specimens to be pointed o-ut of this painter in the United States are the present picture, in the Stewart gallery; a painting of the crusaders re- covering the cross, in another New York collection ; the cartoon of the “Reformation,” seen at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and belonging to Mr. Durfee of Fall River; the portrait of King Ludwig of Bavaria, in the Pennsylvania Academy; the “Mother-love” in Mr. Gibson’s Philadelphia gallery, and the picture also entitled “ Mother-love” in the Cincinnati collection of Mr. Probasco. The Psyche subject is one which engaged the painter’s attention early in life ; before he was thirty years of DIANA AND HER NYMPHS. FAC-SIMILB OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY K. F. SOHN. age he painted sixteen illustrations of Apuleius’ fanciful legend on the walls of the palace of Duke Maximilian. The moment chosen in the Stewart canvas is that when Eros awakens the \ •• ■ -A^'. W' T. SThh I'xi' trotkjess— her ■ . . 'V- ..4' .. -I ;i.;; v_ -rf, V V \:',x I' .V • ■■■' . ‘ -1 : , '. ,•■ Si ;■. .!? ’o!t .■a;v;et'.v ’-■ ■ V;\;x -z:.'' . ' '?•'•: VVto, •/:;'■■' '''-n.- v: •’ -'■ ■:, •' ; ■ : ' ^ ^ ■' ■ _■ 'J. . ■' i"-’, , '-■ ' ■■ ;:’; ■■ -M.' C.: ^ V ' "'■ '• ■ vV:., ■■ ' - rf 'y.' ^ .-■ --yi-yj, u;.Sy'y ■, ...' /■'■■' •■' '.•' - ■■ ■■ . ■ .' .' -•■ " ;'v y ■'-■■ ,.'- '• ’■ /■••' -‘ /■, ■ . V ; ‘ '-;, •■ .-''V ,-s A .V;.;, :. y ,:< ■■■ ' : >•••:, >- ' ■''''*■ V ' ! • ' ■•' '.V-, Crr . -T • -V • ■ '■':•■ " 'r '^’ '. ''■"•■ - it. ', ^ ,., . ' /.i,-’'.'v> .... • ♦ ’...■ . -v^ ., •:,. ".'y y-: .y-t.'. ' '■ V • -i r ) THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 41 Soul with his kiss. A bevy of musical genii hover in the air, and by their painted action of instrumental manipulation these little sprites assist the general idea of harmony and of a joyous awakening. Psyche, reclined upon a bank of flowers and ferns, at the embrace of Cupid lifts one foot with a curious action and stretches the drapery across her lap; another singular motion is that of the nearest cherub, who plays the violin. Kaulbach was a man of education, who knew perfectly well that the fiddle is not a characteristic illustration for Apuleius ; but he chose, by a conscious effort, to ally himself with the old German and Italian painters who introduced viols and the like into classic and biblic subjects, very much as Browning, in Saul, makes David speak in rhyme, though conscious that rhyme is not a Hebrew characteristic ; his notion, perhaps, being to ally his poem in spirit with those of Alfieri and other Italians. The scarcity of easel-pictures by Kaulbach, whether peated it. The goddess — her moon blazing indignantly on her forehead— points towards a supposed Acteon, while four of her nymphs cower around her, hastily assuming garments or drawing their hair about their shoulders. Are we to look to Sohn and to Kaulbach respectively for the reasons of the vast divergence between the Diisseldorf and Munich schools to- day? Munich now represents what is alive, teachable and open to conviction in German art ; it has names, such as Gebhardt, and Leibl, and Lenbach, scarcely exceeded in Euro- pean painting : Diisseldorf, on the contrary, since she parted with Knaus, has scarcely a name to conjure by. Yet no one could claim any great radical difference between the quality of Kaulbach and the quality of Sohn. Both are characteristic of that sort of figure-painting qualified as respectable. But in the dry respectable pedagogy of Kaulbach there seems to have been some secret receptivity of ideas that made his school FISHING-SMACKS RETURNING TO SCHEVENINGEN. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ANDREAS ACHENBACH. in this country or any other, depends largely upon the fact that his works were mostly royal orders, in fresco, for the decoration of public buildings. Kaulbach has been heretofore celebrated for his celebrity — a Fame, without evidence to base it on — nomen et prceteria nihil, a cuckoo-note of art. When seen, as in this specimen, he shows us that it is the occasional origi- nality and complexity of his ideas that have earned him a reputation rather than his mastery of the management of colors. His group of Cupid and Psyche is a conventional Canova-like pair. The faces are Viennese in type, and make one fancy that the legend of Marie Antoinette’s beauty can never be eradicated from German art. The vegetation is simply decorative and impossible, and the picture altogether appeals to a kind of gentle voluptuousness rather than to intelligent appreciation of modeling and color. Kaulbach was professor at Munich. Karl Ferdinand Sohn was, up to his death in 1867, professor at Diisseldorf He is represented in the Stewart gallery by a picture with life-size figures, “ Diana and her Nymphs.” It is the favorite subject of our Diisseldorf pedagogue who has more than once re- bloom out, like a soil charged with germinal life, into one of the great painting developments of the day; while Sohn’s school — that of Diisseldorf — is little thought of now (with an exception to be noted in the next paragraph) and exists in most people’s memories as a factory for the spinning of anec- dotes of peasant life. Andreas Achenbach, one of the most justly famous of German marine painters, is another Dusseldorf artist. Though he never strikes a note so liquid and perfect as the one note of the Belgian marine artist. Clays, yet his quality is limpid, ring- ing and emphatic, while in selection of subject he takes on himself a breadth of responsibility which bears some relation to the ever-varying expressiveness of nature. His present specimen represents “ Fishing-Smacks entering the Harbor at Scheveningen.” Achenbach is fond of rendering the motion of sea-spray by a glancing and almost woven sheen, like spun- glass; a sheen composed of a confusion of lines of silken paint, which certainly has the success of seeming to make the foam dart and fly under the eye, but reminds one of the pencil -work of Tom Tulliver’s drawing-master in that it “ represents nature 42 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. as having a rather satiny surface than otherwise.” This kind of water, by no means unsuccessful, but insisting on the ser- THE KIND GUARDIAN. FAC-SI'MILE OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY KARL HOFF. pentine dart of the waves rather than on their crumbling and marbly inherent quality, is what fills the greater part of the area of the scene before us. The Holland beach, kept in some shape by the simple expedient of piles driven from distance to distance, stretches off to the horizon ; the left part of the view is devoted to the glancing and tossing sea, a fluttering feather- bed on which ride the comically corpulent Dutch luggers with bellied sails. In “ The Kind Guardian,” by Karl Hoff, German art shows a well reconstructed interior of the eighteenth century, with Dresden jars on Buhl tables, and personages whose ex- travagant hoops and expansively-skirted waistcoats emulate the furniture in general glitter of painter’s still-life. The par- ticular kind guardian in question, a paunchy, round-faced indi- vidual— the good uncle of German comedy — is being solicited to marry his two young wards ; the solicitation is borne by the best and most effective hands, for the youth and maid in ques- tion, having made up a match, are asking for his consent in person, one at each ear. The lad pinches his cheek, and looks him in the eye roguishly as he speaks. The girl, more elo- quent, keeps perfectly quiet : she only leans her blushing face against her guardian’s, with a world of meaning. The consent will not be long in coming. How tolerable were existence if it were generally like these pictures of parlor comedy, in an atmosphere of quaint delicacy and refinement, with the buttery hearts of guardians for our chief dragons or obstacles to over- come in life ; with careers cut out for us and generous wills to console us in time for a “ kind guardian’s” taking-off! Meyer von Bremen, or Jean George Meyer of Bremen, is a great favorite with the public on account of the enamel finish he confers on his work, and on that of his themes of children and pretty maids. One of his subjects in this collection is a little barefoot shepherdess, standing relieved, like a bronze, on the brow of a precipice. She knits, without the least vertigo in her clear little kerchiefed head, as the birds wheel above her ; the sky stretches its infinity of air and light around, and her sheep look up from the terraces below awaiting her summons to return to the evening fold. Another represents a maid with a dead bird and a cage, — one of the conceivable poesies that may be imagined to get into the most sordid peasant-life, — a subject as inevitably idyllic, though wrapped in absurdest petticoats and probably destined to grow a goitre, as any Andrew Mar- vell’s “ Maid and Dying Fawn” of them all. A third by the same gentle and gracious hand shows “The Good Sisters.” A peasant boy of five, pretty as a cherub but not of heroic mould, is sitting by the way-side amid a whole seraglio of sisters, who cluster around him and endeavor to extract the thorn which has run into his little naked foot. The interest of the picture consists in its effort to portray a boy’s crying face, a really successful and amusing study of a childish visage turned up to heaven as helplessly as the Laocoon’s, and washed with innocent tears. Childish history has its stings as deep for INDUSTRY. ENGRAVED BY F. FAUST, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY MEYER VON BREMEN. the moment as Laocoon’s, and the ire of the gods seems to it occasionally as relentless as any known to Virgil. .k"'" I . '-,3^ ■■ , - Jt '■ ''JvfeVxri. ‘ I: ■ :; ‘x‘'" ’"-r" ' ■'^'*' v?: ■• <r^r ^ , ‘ » " t'. '-■'J V • ' ’ ' ■•' > 1, > «■' ■- . • '.V-' 1 • '■j': . ■ '. . ■ ^ . • ,-i'i \p, ■ ^ ■•■ ':>j;;Vr-7 .. ..V\ ■ - ’:■“ ■?» ■■ - ■• vx ■«. 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FAC-SIMILK OF A DRAWING BY BENJAMIN CONSTANT FROM HIS PAINTING. 'UGH of German art for the present! Turn we, after the group of Teutonic painters just examined, to the versatile and genial painters ' of France again. The large and sketchily- brushed canvas representing “ Evening on the Terrace, a Souvenir of Morocco,” is by Benjamin Constant, a young pupil of Caba- nel’s who exhibited a “ Hamlet” as long ago as 1 869, but whom nobody noticed par- ticularly until his “ Entry of Mahomet II into Constantinople” was exposed some seven or eight years later. The “Evening on the Terrace” represents with wonderful effect the balmy blue of a brief tropical twilight, bathing the immense serene over- head with waves of ether. Far off stretches the Mediterranean, and the roofs of Morocco occupy the intermediate space with their flat forms and their precipitous eaves. The women have brought out their carpets and skins of animals, stretched upon which they feast upon the rich air, — the sole intoxication permitted to believers. One of them is a young and monumental-looking girl, with broad cheek-bones and serious eyes, who sits upon her panther-hide with the immobility of a Memnon in the desert. It is the dower of these orientals to slouch with majesty, to idle in a splendid and impressive manner, and to take their large share of life’s repose without looking as if they were ashamed. This grave' and Memnonian maid, who has never improved her. mind, and who ruminates among the fleet splendors of the waning sky as solemnly as a heifer, fits in well with the time and the scene. In a grimy manufacturing town of the 'Western world, where there are sewing-machines and art-schools for the poor, she would be decidedly out of place, for she and her tribe have drifted for ages like the sand in the hour-glass, knowing reverses, but no advance. “On the Cliff” is by Pierre Outin, a pupil of Cabanel’s also, born at Moulins and living in Paris. While' the poor fisherman’s wife, in Breton cap, haunts the brink for the first sight of her goodman’s brown sail, the smart city-people flutter all over the rocks with their frivolity and their furniture. They must have camp-chairs, spy-glasses, gloves, umbrellas and toy- boats, canes, cigarettes, veiled helmets, fans, and every inven- tion yet patented for making time fly in summer. The little boy bestrides the cannon of the garde-cote, the spoilt and beribboned girl clamors for a peep through the telescope before her elders are done with it. It is questionable whether the seaside does such people much good. The largeness and simplicity of nature do not get the bettermost, for these uneasy mortals quite conquer nature with the multiplicity and power of their moral diseases. As for the artist, his function is to observe and record. He has secured bits of life-like character in the young cit who turns to fillip the ash from his cigarette, and the Omniscience in a cap, who is convinced that by simply leaving his hat at home he has made himself an undistinguish- able counterfeit of a sea-captain. Bouguereau, with his clean and waxen style, is well repre- sented in the Stewart gallery. He has never attained greater elevation of quality than in his “ Nouveau-ne,” or “ New-born Lamb,” a delicate subject of a sweet-faced shepherdess carrying a lamb, and turning to say soft, reassuring things to the ewe that trots apprehensively beside her. This picture has been used by Mr. Hamerton for the Portfolio, and described with rnany compliments in the text which he there edits. In a French periodical, at another time, a Paris critic who wrote as if he was conscious of many reserves when he complimented Bouguereau, broke down when he came to this particular 43 44 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. specimen, and exclaimed: “Before the ‘Nouveau-ne’ I can only exclaim, as Diderot did before a celebrated Greuze, — RETURN FROM THE HARVEST. FAC -SIMILE OF SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY W. A. BOUGUEREAU. ‘ delicious ! delicious !’ ” The “ Homer,” too, a canvas of 1874, is certainly one of Bouguereau’s most successful works. It includes a pair of life-size figures, — the bard of Chios, serene in meditation, and his boyish guide, alert and apprehensive. In the distance, the rude young Ionian shepherds set on their dogs at the stately stranger, and the curs rush up in full cry, but change their ideas as they come nearer, so that the dog who has actually approached the poet fawns on him in full submission and obedience. Through the torrid weather that prints their features in sharp bronze-like shadows, past an inattentive or reviling world of ignorance, amongst the rude barking and worrying of dogs, past the young fig-tree that brushes them with its flat, papery leaves, but has no fruit for them — with an empty basket and a crust jealously held from the reach of the dog, the pair make their way to carry their divine message of poesy from their century to future ones — to our own. A still later specimen of Bouguereau is “The Return from the Harvest,” a canvas of about 1878. In this, while the figures are of nearly the scale of the last, the greater num- ber necessitates a larger canvas and makes what is called a more “ important” picture. The treatment seems to have been inspired by Leopold Robert’s “ Harvest Fete” in the Louvre, and represents one of the half-pagan celebrations which have come down from the earliest Greek colonization of the Neapolitan coast. A naked child has been crowned with leaves and set upon a donkey, in front of his mother, who sits behind him like a kind of pagan madonna or Ceres ; she teaches him to manage the bridle, and the girl and boy, who advance along- side, dance nimbly on their agile and naked legs, beating the uplifted tambourine and waving branches in front of this inno- cent ovation. It is unnecessary to take much time to the description of such a subject by such a well-known painter; a word and a line, a phrase and a hasty diagram, are enough to elucidate the specimen. Bouguereau’s peculiar talent being given, and the scale being mentioned as life-size, “you see from here,” as the French say, just how he would treat it, and how much solid but conventional merit of drawing and expression he would fasten upon so many square feet of canvas. The decorative and learned pictures of Bouguereau, whether large and intricate like these treasures of a millionaire’s mansion, or smaller and more restricted in theme, always contain good design, conscientious manipulation, and a genuine search for grace. Very delicate perception of character and feeling, very important bits of luck in rendering expression, very intricate and magical drawing, very subtle poetry amid a plethora of respectable poetry, we do not exactly expect to find in the works of this master, whose art wishes ever to be prepossess- ing, and accordingly cannot get a chance to be serious. But before work of his so conscientious as is here to be found, before the “ Nouveau-ne” especially, we may well drop the last remnant of hostility, and echo the tribute that has sounded from Diderot’s age to ours, — “ delicious ! delicious !” Dubufe fils, the son of a well-known portrait-painter of Paris, and the pupil of that artist as well as of Delaroche, is represented in this collection by two works, the “ Prodigal Son,” and “A Circassian Woman.” The “Prodigal” is the well-known subject of the parable, a composition here seen only in the elaborate color study, with figures about one foot in height. The painter’s more important development of the composition, with life-size groups, was exposed in the Paris K'yyr' ’■ m \i^l -/ -'^A ' '/k V • ’^,- . I -< ^-' t;' -ff. 'fta^"RS>s SlliW ,j^-' • 'A ‘Ik ‘‘ 'k’W.‘ V^•'.V^ •i".' 1'j(5 'v:'<^''t^'’^''' 'V& . 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Vinter into a nc’i aiii! a!i'-<'.ci;.vo oryte .thoUt . fv • >> ‘i • ,v r THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 45 Salon of 1867, hung in a place of honor and the cynosure of the populace, but unable to attract the judicious admiration of THE NEW-BORN LAMB. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY W. A. BOUGUEREAU. more fastidious critics. This, as well as the present color- study, became the property of Mr. Stewart, and was carried around in the United States as a show ; it was finally burned in the West, after remunerating Mr. Stewart by the profits of its exhibition for its cost of thirty thousand dollars. We may sufficiently appreciate the merits of the composition by the more manageable copy which survives. The scene is divided into a trilogy, the “ riotous living,” in colors, occupying the centre, and the repentance and return being placed at the sides in slender panels painted in grisaille. It is a peculiarity of this most popular of the parables, that artists have treated it, in every age, not in the costume of the first century, but in arbitrary habiliments intended better to subserve the purposes of decoration, or to appeal more directly to contemporaries. It has even been dressed out in the costumes of Hogarth’s day, and made to figure as a sort of corollary to the “ Idle Apprentice.” Nothing could better show the universality of the admirable story, its independence of bounds of time or place, and its continuous adaptation to changing epochs, than this instinct of art to free it from the trammels of contempo- rary manners and re-vamp it from time to time for the needs of successive periods and far-off races. Dubufe has made it a Veronese scene of silks and jewels, purpoints and hose, renaissance architecture and Italian festival. The weak youth is seen in the central compartment, in the rich velvets and simarres of Titian’s day, tossing the wine-cup amid a bevy of damsels ; in the last panel, his father receives him in the robes of a doge. The execution of the two monochrome panels, at right and left, is better than that of the crowded centre, which errs by the fault of glitter and insufficiency, while the moral of the work is weakened by the prominence and development given to the picture of sin. The episode of the prodigal’s riots, delivered in the parable in a single disdainful line, cannot be expanded by a painter into a rich and attractive orgie without a suspicion of pruriency; but this was perhaps to be expected, art being what it is. The tableau of debauchery yields more color and picturesqueness, and the artist naturally develops the colored and the picturesque at the expense of the didactic. The important question from a critical point of view is, has the painter risen to the height of his opportunity ? This is at least, it must be admitted, the most thorough and difficult theme he has undertaken, and we cannot but accord to it a considerable amount of success, though it is very far behind the great wedding-scene of Veronese which it seems to emu- late. We feel through the picture that the artist is uncom- fortable in his task of grouping a quantity of personages under given conditions of light and air ; used to the single portrait, he does not always know how to subordinate his minor figures in the discreet modesty of nature. Dubufe is ranked by French critics among the best of modern portraitists, and his reputation has gone on increasing since the painting of this picture, instead of declining. When the “ Prodigal Son” appeared, and was denounced for its loudness and hardness and glitter, its general quality of Corinthian brass, Dubufe was certainly abased in estimation below Merle and Cabanel and Bouguereau. Since then, by confining himself to portraiture and by never attaching himself to the picture-agency of any great shop, he has earned a higher if a more retiring place : he would be ranked, perhaps, above Cabanel now, in the portrait line, and at about the level of Giacomotti. This THE OIRCASSIENNE. ENGRAVED BY F. FAUST, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY E. DUBUFE. quality shines forth in such a single-figure subject as the “Cir- cassian Woman,” where the problem is the same as that of a 46 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. . portrait. It is a pure and workmanlike study of a female model, posed so as to give a vivid idea of movement and life, clothed in damaskeened tissues, and crowned with a peculiar smile that recalls the smile invented by Leonardo. The woman supports a water-jar, and laughs furtively, with lowered eyes, in presence of some adorer. It is by examining such a specimen as this, if we cannot get at one of his high-bred and interpre- tative portraits, that we shall come to understand how Dubufe, by well-doing in restricted fields of work, has come to be preferred before Merle, and Bouguereau, and Jalabert. By Hugues Merle — the ever-popular and resolutely pic- turesque— there are two striking scenes, each in dialogue, or confined to a parley between two personages. They are of some abnormal, unsexed, footlight Androgyne of that great English renaissance. The “ Hamlet” subject represents the Danish prince endeavoring, with harsh kindness, to wean Ophelia’s affections from him, as he bids her go to a nunnery. The poor chamberlain’s daughter, with her indefinite place at court and her general powerlessness to guide events to good, holds her prayer-book and does not repudiate the suggestion : with female intractability, her next proceeding in the story, however, is to go to the theatre, and not to the cloister. Merle’s conception of the hapless .lovers is probably based upon first impressions taken from Gounod’s Hamlet, with Faure and Nilsson in the principal characters. He represents Hamlet’s suffering in this scene, but not his withering severity. THE GODMOTHER’S VISIT. FAC-SIMILE OF A DRAWING BY F. D. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY C. BAUGNIET. large proportions, with life-size figures, both from Shakespeare, and respectively comic and tragic. One represents the witty banter of Beatrice with Benedick, and endeavors to show in the expression of that brilliant and uncomfortable woman the very inception and thrust of one of her terrible repartees. It is the moment when Benedick, tormented and enchanted, calls her “ dear lady Disdain.” He is nervous and enthralled, shamed and stimulated ; he meditates some bitter reply as he plays with the hilt of his sword, which reflects itself in his armor. As for Beatrice’s sword, it is seen reddened between her pearly teeth, and its reflection is in her wicked eye. One likes to fancy the declamation of lines so intricate and difficult as those of the part of Beatrice, in Shakespeare’s time, by some hectic, over-stimulated, stage-spoiled, precocious boy. So could best be carried out, probably, Shakespeare’s instructions for the portrayal of this dazzling female intellect. “A star danced when I was born,” says the terrible maid, and her celestial capriciousness could most fully be represented, it may be, by Ophelia, with an ineffective face in thin relief, seems to be a distant reflection of Mademoiselle Nilsson, This group is certainly less adequate to its great text than the scene of comedy, which last, all things considered, may be allowed to be better than any English picture illustrating Shakespeare, and to suggest happily the sword-play of intellect characteristic of Elizabeth and her court. Charles Baugniet is a Belgian arti.st resident in Paris, and considered as belonging to the French school. His subject, “The Godmother’s Visit,” may be compared, but with a differ- ence, to Munkacsy’s scene of a new-born babe also receiving callers. Two ladies of equal age — old boarding-school friends perhaps — have vowed to tell each other all their secrets from girlhood ; to confide each of the many times a helpless being has proposed, and to give in its freshness the single decisive bit of news when the answer has been “ yes.” But a new depth of feeling is awakened when the confidence extends to con- stituting the old comrade the godmother of the first baby ■f ■*,’: ilttti’ ;.^tr ,,<!»)•■: <■ ■ r . i iKt.KOill W- ■ , :':,Vi-,i., ,■ •■ ■ it:.-’. „■ --ly .. . y .-' • ".i '/V; ..' yV' ^ .: ‘■■I-: ■-.' •; ■ . .■ .-. ■ - .> . ■- - /■ ' ;■■ ■ . . , ' ' y':' ’ f •%.- ■ y ‘....'skCS, i^'. ' ... >.cr->. • •■ - ••' ft W'.. His ; and i marb yirU \ - ■ ■( :J.> ‘i- .-pi * ;) 1 / ’. - THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 47 which has been born between the brace of comrades. One of the girls has so entirely eclipsed the other, has attained to such overwhelming dignity, and has actually enriched the world with a new life ! Her inferior can only admire and envy. She holds the baby, unskilfully and rapturously, thinking of the terrible conspicuousness of going with it to the font, and afterwards the hideous responsibility of promising to teach it its catechism, which she has herself forgotten, every word; — to a Belgian artist, this protestant contingency may indeed have occurred as he painted, and made him smile. We must read again the Monsieur, Madame et Bebe of Droz, to revive these exquisite, ticklish, innocent and risky sensations which titillate the sick pillow of a young mother, and the specula- tions of a spectator of the same. In “ Blindman’s Buff” we see that, as the London Art Journal says: “Baugniet represents French girls and women who have nothing to do but to be charming, to prepare for confirmation in the church, for the social sacrifice and social aggrandizement that are illustrated in the civil and religious rites of marriage, but upon whom the disfiguring blight of labor never falls. He represents opulent and charming women, — women who live in voluptuousness, and talk about the sentiment of the heart, but commonly live withdrawn from the rudest and most heroic and religious experiences of the personal life ; who belong to the race of women who, in France, have shown themselves capable of devotion and heroism and resolution ; who have shed the highest glory upon their sex ; who, on the great occasions of life, have not been less, with all their charm, than the more re- served and austere women of England and America. Baugniet represents Frenchwomen in the agreeable and ordinary, but luxurious, conditions of home-life in France, — in curtained and perfumed boudoirs, in elegant saloons ; he gratifies us but does not exalt us with such subjects ; he appeals to our feelings of enjoyment and our taste for refinement; his work is the outcome of a person without any deep moral sentiment, and who seldom if ever concerns himself with what has made, what makes, the glory and grandeur of our race. In the place of passion, fashionable society substitutes pleasure; and Baugniet illustrates it in his pictures ; in the place of labor, a worldly and fine society substitutes amusement, and Baugniet’s works show us what amusement. His beautiful woman painting her eyelids before the mirror of an exquisite sky-blue toilet-table, his bride being qdorned for the sacrifice, — these Indicate his tastes, and how the contemporary Parisienne prepares for the social world in which she lives and moves and has her being. His pictures are remarkable for exquisite finish, purity of tone, and admirable rendering of the texture of silks and satins, of marble and gold. He enjoys painting these lovely women and girls in opulent nests ; his sense of art is satisfied with the familiar objects of the life of elegance. In a word, he is an accomplished painter of women of the world, of women who would resent a breach of taste in manners more than a breach of morals.” Another foreigner identified with French art by a Paris residence is Giuseppe Castiglione, originally from Naples. Plis specialty is park-scenes, — landscapes combined with figures. He has thus illustrated many of the principal country-seats of England, Italy and France. In this collection he is represented by the “ Villa Torlonia,” an estate near Rome, where the formal and beautiful style of Italian landscape-gardening, with terraces. EN FAMILLE. FAC-SIMILE OF DRAWING FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY L. E. LAMBERT. balustrades and ilex-trees, is seen in its perfection. To this quaint scene the painter brings a throng of figures evoked by his imagination from the past, the dames in hoop and furbelow, who feed the swans, or hold the parasol in one hand and the fishing-line in the other, or who listen with downcast eyes to the mandolin of the cicisbeo. The Swiss artist, Gottfried Mind, spent his life among his grimalkins, and was called the Raphael of cats. Such a title might properly come down to the French painter, Lambert, who has made the realm of cat-kind his own. No artist of the day has painted the cat with such truth, delicacy and sympathy. Unlike Salvator Rosa, who has left the heads of half-a-dozen scolding or swearing witch’s cats to affright the spectator in the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, the modern Frenchman depicts the Angoras in the best of tempers, and is especially fond of showing the innocent graces of little high-bred kittens. A litter of them reposes on a cushion in the Stewart example — six small balls of fur with little briery claws attached and little ornamental brindled tails, which they manage with an elegance derived from their lofty birth, as a dandy’s breeding shows in the nice conduct of a clouded cane. They are helpless, and the earth is an unknown problem to them. But yesterday their little amber glances were closed to the world and all its cares ; but to-day their eyes are opened, and as the airy butterfly drifts in on a beam of heavenly sun- shine, they perplex their young heads with eager theories of the immortality of the soul. An animal-painter, now of our own country, is Mr. Arthur F. Tait, of Liverpool and New York, who contributes to the Stewart collection a picture of grouse, and another of sheep, the latter entitled “ Lost in the Snow.” Four helpless, woolly 48 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. truants — their soiled fleeces looking quite black against the purity of the snow — have lost their way, like an allegory of silly debauchees ; and, like debauchees, they find the earth but LOST IN THE SNOW. FAC-SIMILE OF A DRAWING FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. F. TAIT. a cold dependence, for it is frozen and snow-bound. The shepherd’s dog has, however, found them out ; and, bringing his master, — an old and experienced farmer, — superintends the resuscitation and home-bringing with great dignity and intelli- gence. Mr. Tait has been reproached for excessive finish ; the present picture cannot be said to sin in this respect ; and if his study of grouse, near by, may be thought to be too literal in the enumeration of feathers and scales, it should be remembered that this artist is one who strives to make his pictures contributions to natural history, and to preserve the facts about our fast-vanishing native tribes ; he not only paints with a fair degree of art feeling, but he registers anatomical facts as conscientiously as Audubon or Wilson. Three of the largest and most valuable pictures in the collection of Mrs. Stewart are Rosa Bonheur’s “ Horse Fair,” August Bonheur’s “ Fontainebleau,” and Horace Vernet’s “ Triumph of Julius Csesar.” “ The Horse Fair,” of which we give a sketch on page 23, was painted in 1852, when the artist was in her thirtieth year ; it was exhibited in the Paris Exhi- bition of 1855, and won universal admiration. Rosa Bonheur has -long resided in the country near Fon- tainebleau, where she studies and paints without interruption. Visitors carry off her works as fast as they are finished, conse- quently she never sends anything to sale exhibitions. Where there is merit of course there must be detraction and its food is the imperfection inseparable from every human work. Critics have reproached Rosa with aping the vigorous style of a man’s execution ; to which her supporters reply that she only imitates nature, and at the same time, indicates delicate shades of feeling such as would occur only to a woman. From Leon y Escosura, a native of the Asturias, of Spain, but a resident of the Rue Chaptal, Paris, we have “ Haddon Hall,” an inspiration from that historical seat in England. Nothing — not even a herd of dappled deer — could so pic- turesquely dot the lovely glades of the foreground as the stately, bright-robed figures with which he has relieved his landscape. Choosing a theme exactly in the vein of some of the English water-colorists and anecdote painters, he gives it that air of novelty and fresh candor which is often conferred on a subject when a foreign commentator approaches and makes his state- ment. His picture is comparatively large, considering the scrupulous minuteness of its touches, and it deserves the elaborate engraving which we have caused to be presented to our readers. Escosura is a pupil of Gerome and follows that master in his attractive .color and extreme finish. Besides this “ Haddon Hall,” in the Stewart collection, we have other ex- amples of his work in “ The Reception of an Ambassador,” belonging to Mr. Higglesworth, of Boston; “The Convalescent Prince,” in the collection of Mr. T. R. Butler, of New York, and “The Heir” — new born, belonging to Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt. The art of Germany has two characteristics, — “ North and South,” “ fresco and easel works,” “ high art and familiar.” No doubt there is a common critical point of view for all German works. The wall-painting, both religious and historical, began in Munich and penetrated to P'rankfort, Diisseldorf and Berlin ; but apart from that the differences are easily recognizable. Some years ago an English writer on German art, re- marked, that Piloty “ is comparatively little known out of Bavaria and Austria this may be true from an English stand- point, but not so from an American. From a different school than that in which Piloty studied, comes F. T. Hildebrandt, who was a pupil of the Royal Academy, at Berlin, while it was under the direction of von Schadow. Hidebrandt was born CORDELIA AND KING LEAR. FAC-SlMlLE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY F. T. HILDEBRANDT. in 1804; his father was a bookbinder, at Stettin, and he learned his father’s trade, but prepared himself in his leisure hours for his future profession. He formed a firm friendship for his THE COLLECTION OF MRS. A. T. STEWART. 49 master, von Schadow, and accompanied the latter to Rome, in 1830; there they remained a considerable time. In 1836, Hildebrandt accepted the professorship in the Diisseldorf Academy. In early manhood he associated with dramatic authors and actors, and this taste has followed him all his life, dictating frequently the choice of subjects for his pencil. Besides th^ “ Cordelia and King Lear,” which hangs on the north wall of the Stewart gallery, we remember his “ Lear Lamenting over the Body of Cordelia,” “ The Parting of Romeo and Juliet,” “The Murder of the Princes in the Tower,” and his “ Imogene.” The “Cordelia and King Lear” We add another sketch of the work of a Diisseldorf artist, a “ Royalist Castle Invaded by Puritans,” by William Camphausen, born at Diisseldorf, 1810, who manifested from his earliest years a love of drawing, and after completing his college studies, entered the academy of his native town. Being fond of painting horses and battles, he for some years joined a regiment of hussars to study his subjects close at hand, and made long tours in Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Many of his subjects are taken from English history, such as, “ Removal of Prisoners belonging to Cromwell’s Party,” “ Cavaliers and Roundheads,” “ Charles ROYALIST CASTLE INVADED BY PURITANS. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BV W. CAMPHAUSEN. formed one of the famous Dusseldorf collection, familiar to art-lovers of nearly a generation ago, and it was bought by the late owner at the dispersion of that collection. The “ Falstaff and his Recruits,” by Schrodter, Camphausen’s “Charles I as a Prisoner” and “Castle Invaded by Puritans,” Lindler’s “ Cascade,” Sohn’s “ Diana and her Nymphs,” Hubner’s “Weavers of Silesia” and “Young Married Couple,” and Achenbach’s “ Fishing Smacks Returning to Scheveningen” all came from the Dusseldorf collection. The incident chosen by Hildebrandt for the “ Cordelia and King Lear,” is from Act IV, Scene 7, in which the King, not recognizing his child, “ our dear Cordelia,” exclaims : Ci?ra. — Sir, do you know me ? Ztfar. — You are a spirit, I know ; when did you die ? The artist’s aim has been to represent the filial love of Cordelia, who, although disinherited and disowned by her father, clings to him, whereas his daughters, Goneril and Regan, upon whom he bestowed his blessing, have driven him to despair and madness. II in the Retreat from Worcester,” “Pillage of an English Castle by Cromwell’s Soldiers,” and “ Charles I at the Battle of Naseby.” The sculpture of the Stewart gallery is largely of Ameri- can origin, revealing, as indeed do many of the pictures, the collector’s liberal, and on the whole intelligent, fostering of native art. Thus, the second copy of the six made by Powers of his “ Greek Slave” was executed to his order ; another we have seen in the Corcoran gallery at Washington. Mrs. Browning’s enthusiastic sonnet to the marble Slave will occur to every mind in contemplating the symbol of Christianity enchained among the heathen Turks in the market of oda- lisques. The “ Greek Slave” was Powers’ first ideal work, or at least the first with which he was willing to make an appeal for recognition to the public. Whether the fame which it won for him cramped his genius instead of expanding it, it is impossi- ble to say, but it is certain that he never surpassed, and never equaled it by any subsequent performance. His “California,” his “ Fisher Boy,” his “ Eve Disconsolate,” and his “ Last of the Tribe” are all works of considerable excellence, but they are 50 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. all inferior to the “ Greek Slave” in that nameless something which raises a work of art far above the level of the common- PAUL AND VIRGINIA. MARBLE BY J. DURHAM. place. The “ Greek Slave” was sculptured nearly half a century ago, and it now more than justifies its original reputation, when placed in comparison with the many ideal statues that have been made by men who have risen to fame since Powers startled Europe and America with this masterpiece. There are, it is true, feeble modeling in parts, indicative of crude and imperfect training, and of a lack of knowledge on the artist’s part of some of the refinement of the human form ; but after all deductions are made, the purity, expressiveness, and truly ideal grace of the statue remain to testify that the one-time enthusiastic admiration of Europe and America was not mis- applied or wasted on a mere piece of artistic trumpery. In 1838 Mr. Powers achieved his statue of “ Eve,” which excited the admiration of Thorwaldsen, who pronounced it a work which any sculptor might be proud to claim as his masterpiece. A sketch of the “ Eve” forms an initial on page 23. The sculptor followed it up with another “ Eve,” the pair respectively representing our first mother before and after the fall ; both are in the Stewart gallery. Miss Harriet Hosmer’s most creditable work, representing the Eastern queen, Zeno- bia, marching as a captive in the triumph of Aurelian, and borne down with the weight of her barbaric jewels, came to this country in 1865, and now adorns the collection. Harriet Hosmer, the most famous of American female sculptors, was born at Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1830. Her father was a physician, and she was encouraged by him to follow her natural inclination for out-door exercise and athletic sports. The death of her mother, when she was quite a child, threw her greatly on her own resources, and under the peculiar system pursued with regard to her by her father, who was anxious to counteract a tendency to consumption, she speedily developed into a good deal of a tom-boy, and was more expert at hunting bird’s-nests, riding horses, and indeed all manner of boyish pastimes and mischiefs than she was at needle-work and the usual girlish exercises. When quite a child she was a taxidermist of no little skill, and prepared a number of spe- cimens of her own shooting, and at the early age of eight years she showed such a strong predisposition for artistic pursuits as to induce her friends to believe that it would be worth while to cultivate her talents. Miss Hosmer’s first serious artistic essays were as a painter. She began this practice when about sixteen years of age, but conceiving that sculpture was a higher form of art, she undertook to learn modeling, and was so successful in making a statuette from a figure in an engraving which took her fancy, that she was per- suaded to believe her genius had at last found its proper field of employment. She next attempted a number of ideal busts and portraits of her intimate friends, and having gotten her hand in a measure trained to the proper wielding of a sculp- tor’s tools, she made an essay in marble by copying, in reduced size, a collossal bust of Napoleon by Canova. At the time she was making these tentative efforts in the art of sculpture, she was also going through the process of being “ finished” at the celebrated female seminary kept by Mrs. Sedgwick, at Lenox, Massachusetts. On leaving Massachusetts, Miss Hosmer went to reside with her father, at St. Louis, whence, prompted with adven- turous longings, she made a trip to the Falls of St. Antony, and resided for some time among the Indians, sketching and model- ing as her fancy led. On her return to St. Louis she went to work with a will, studying anatomy under the direction of Dr. McDowell — and, between-times, perfected her beautiful “Hesper,” which justified the high expectation of her friends. By the time Miss Hosmer had exhausted such facilities for thorough artistic instructions as America afforded, and by NYDIA: THE BLIND GIRL OF POMPEII. MARBLE BY RANDOLPH ROGERS. the advice of her best friends, she decided to go to Rome. With a daguerreotype of her “Hesper,” as a specimen of her t I ; ^ f -,1 HAMLET ANB OPHELIA, -BARRIK, PHILADELPHIA, I THE COLLECTION OF MR S. A. T S TE WA R T. 51 abilities, in her possession, she sailed for Europe, in company with her father, in 1852. On arriving at Rome she obtained an introduction to the English sculptor, Gibson, and that excellent artist, after looking at the daguerreotype of the “ Hesper,” consented at once to admit her to his studio as a pupil. Miss Hosmer studied and worked under Gibson’s direction until his death. The statue of “Zenobia” is full of dignity and queenly grace, with a fine expression of sorrow and disdain on the face, and it represents the ripe results of a rare native genius, cultivated and brought to perfection under the training of a master who was himself an artist of very superior abilities and very superior attainments, but who fettered himself with theories about the objects and aims of sculpture, which con- demned him to be an imitator rather than a creator. A sketch of “ Zenobia” is given on page 43. Mr. Rogers is a native of Virginia ; tall, distinguished in appearance, and a delightful companion, he is one of the indis- pensable members of the American colony at Rome. His “ Nydia,” which has been so great a favorite with his country- men that he has had to execute a number of repliche, illustrates the heroine of Bulwer’s Last Days of Pompeii. The preface to that work will explain to the reader how the novelist con- ceived the idea of depicting a blind maiden as a participant in the catastrophe of the Vesuvian city, her habits of activity under her affliction giving her an advantage in the hour of sudden night. Around this thought of the superiority of an intelligent blind person in time of darkness, suggested to the novelist in conversation, he has with incomparable constructive ability made to revolve the whole procession of Pompeiian discoveries as we see them, as well us the plot of an ingenious love-tale. In Mr. Rogers’ statue we see the sightless slave hurrying through the streets of Pompeii, never heeding the falling column that the disturbance has hurled at her very feet, and intently listening for every trace that will guide her to her Greek lover. The figure perfectly represents the act of walk- ing by the sense of the ear, not of the sight. Thackeray, in The Newcomes, praises “ Sir Bulwer Lytton’s delightful story, which has become the history of Pompeii” — thus atoning in his latter days for the unmerciful ridicule he heaped on “ Bulwig” in his youth. But Thackeray sees a comic side to the tragedy of the town. “ What would be a better figure than Pliny’s mother, whom the historian describes as exceedingly corpulent, and walking away from the catastrophe with slaves holding cushions behind her, to shield her plump person from the cinders ?” This deriding notice of the misfortunes of a hi.storical family is merely quoted for the grain of actuality it contains, in instancing the only available defences which in that day of peril were found convenient. The bewildered inhabitants of Pompeii, fleeing from their homes, seized the pillows from the bed-roorn and the cushions from the triclinium, as the obvious protection against a shower of cinders. Tantardini contributes to the gallery his “ Bagnante,” a work of which a copy was seen at the Centennial Exhibition, where Signor Tantardini attended as one of the art judges. He is a Milanese, one of the exponents of the modern picturesque style of Italian sculpture, and has obtained medals at London, Berlin, Oporto and Vienna. The innocent group of “ Paul and Virginia” is by Mr. Durham, an English sculptor. It represents, in life size, the child-lovers of Mauritius, as described in Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s im- mortal idyl. There is a delicate, refined pair of busts by the THE BATHER. ENGRAVED FROM THE ORIGINAL STATUE BY A. TANTARDINI. French contemporary sdulptor Aizelin, conspicuous for being bedecked with real gold, or at least gilded, jewelry, with a pleasant and warm effect that would not have displeased a Greek. One ‘ represents Goethe’s Marguerite before her ac- quaintance with Faust— the other the same heroine in her hours of regret and desolation, at the close of the drama. There are many other pieces of sculpture, but the majority are hardly of an importance that demands their illustration or enumeration. We leave the Stewart gallery with regret, tempered with the knowledge that we have other treasures to glory in. On the following page our readers will find a Catalogue of the Stewart Collection ; similar catalogues will be appended to all the principal collections to be described in these pages. CATALOGUE OF MRS. A. T. STEWART’S COLLECTION. Achenbach, a. — Landscape. Marine. “ “ Fishing Smacks Returning to Sche- veningen. “ “ Landscape. Alvarez, L. — Jealousy. Backalowicz, L. — Henry V. “ . “ The Visit. “ “ Richelieu's Cats. Bakkerkorff, a. H. — Gossip. Baugniet, C. — Blmd-Man^s Buff. “ “ The Letter. “ “ The Visit of the Godmother. Beard, J. H. — Dogs. Becker, C. — The Rendezvous. Benouville, a. J. — The Pic du Midi. Beyle, P. M. — Odalisque and Parrot. Bierstadt, a. — Seal Rock, San B'rancisco. “ “ The Rocky Mountains. \_Colorado. “ “ Natural Park and Lake, Southern Boldini, G. — The Washerwomen. “ “ Park of Versailles, XVIII Century. “ “ Waiting. Bonheur, a. — Fontainebleau. Landscape and Cattle. Bonheur, Rosa. — The Horse Fair. Bouguereau, W. a. — The New-born Lamb. “ “ Return from the Harvest. “ Homer and his Guide. \^gustus. Boulanger, G. R. C. — The Appian Way; time ofAu- Boutibonne, C. E. — Raleigh in presence of Queen Elizabeth Weighing the Ashes from his Pipe. Brown, J. G. — Going to the Hunt. “ “ The Death. Camphausen, W. — Charles I as a Prisoner. “ “ Castle Invaded by Puritans ; Time of Charles I. Casenova, a. — Lady and Cavalier. Castiglione, G. — The Villa Torlonia. Chavet, V. — The Duet. Chelmonski, Jan. — Hunting Scene. “ “ In the Forest. Church, F. E. — Niagara, from American side. Cl.airin, G. — Carnival at Venice. Classen, Carl. — Queen Katherine and Cardinal Wolsey. Comte, P. C. — Looking Out. “ “ The Visit. Constant, B. — Evening; Souvenir of Morocco. Daubigny, C. — The Month of May. De Braekeleer, F. — The Singing Lesson. DE Cock, Xavier. — Landscape. DE CONINCK, P. — My Pet. De Huysvel, C. — Interior. De Jonghe, G. — Happiness. [Races. De Nittis, I. — Bois de Boulogne — Return from the “ Flirtation in Hyde Park. De Noter, D. E. [. — Lady and Fruit. [Flowers. De Noter and Baugniet. — Lady and Fruit and Desgoffe, B. — Objets d’Art. Detaille, E. — The Camp at St. Maur, i86g. Dubufe, E. — The Prodigal Son. “ “ The Circassienne. “ “ Feeding the Pet. “ “ Lady and Parrot. Dunlap, Wm. — Rose of Capri. Egusquiza, R. — A Bright Lookout. Ender, Thos. — Schiller at the Court of Weimar. Faed, T, — Mother and Son. Ferrier, G. — Marguerite. 52 Fichel, E. B. — Going to Mass, Church of St. Sulpice. “ “ In the Gallery. “ “ In the Salon. Fortuny, M. — The Sea-Beach at Portici. “ “ The Serpent-Charmer. Fran^ais, F. L. — Ruins of Pompeii. Frere, Ed. — Dinner Time. Gallait, L. — Abelard and Ileloise. Gerome, j. L. — A Collaboration. “ “ Pollice "Verso. “ “ Circus Maximus. Gignoux, R. — Niagara. “ “ White Mountains. Girard, F. — Fishing. “ “ Lady giving Alms to Old Man. Gisbert, a. — Youth. Goupil, j. & De Noter. — Lady and Flowers. Graskoss, O. — Sons of the Cid. Gray, H. P. — Holy Family. Gude, F. a. — Norwegian Landscape. Hart, J. M. — Landscape. Hart, W. — The Golden Hour. Hasenclever, F. P. — The Club-Room. Herpfer, C. — The Godfather' s Visit. Hildebrandt, F. T. — Cordelia and King Lear. Hobbema, M. — Moonlight. Hoff, K. — The Kind Guardian. HUbner, Carl. — The Young Married Couple. “ “ The Weaver of Silesia. Huntington, D. — Lady Washington's Reception. Ingomar, G. — Tired Out. Irving, J. B. — Waiting Audience. Jacque, C. — Sheep. JACQUET, J. G. — Venetian Lady. “ “ Portrait of a Lady. [Square. Jiminez y Aranda, J. — Mountebanks in a Spanish Johnson, E. — The Confab. Kaulbach, W. von. — Cupid and Psyche. Kellogg, M. D. — After the Bath. Kiesel, C. — The Happy Mother. Knaus, L. — The Children's Party. Lambert, L. E. — Cats on Cushion: “ En E'amille.” Lamont, a. — Brigand Confesses Murder to a Priest. Leloir, M. — Fishing. Leon y Escosura, D. Y. — Iladdon Hall. Lesrel, a. a. — The Bandit's Ruse. Leutze, E. — Paradise and the Peri. Lindler. — The Cascade. Madou, j. B. — At the ShoemakeV s. [Feeding Monkey. Madrazo, R. de “a mon ami Zamacois.” — Lady « “ La Marquise. [Father. Meissonier, C. — Nice., With Two Figures by his Meissonier, j. L. E. — iBo'j, or Friedland. “ “ The Beggar. [sian War. “ “ Reminiscence of Franco- Prus- “ “ Portrait of the Artist. Water- Merle, H. — Hamlet and Ophelia. [color. “ “ Benedick and Beatrice. Meyer von Bremen. — Industry. “ The First Sorrow. “ The Good Little Sisters. Michetti, P. — A Misty Morning, Rome. Moreau, A. — Gathering Pond-Lilies. Muller, C. L. — Innocence. MunkAcsy, M. — Visit to the Baby. NicoL, E. — The Disputed Boundary. OuTIN, P. — On the Cliff. “ “ Goodbye, Grandpapa. Page, W. — Purity. Palmaroli, V. — On the Terrace. Parton, a. — A Mountain Brook. Paulsen, F. — Baby's Jumping-Jack. [cus. PiLOTY, C. — Thusnelda in the Triumph of Germani- Pinchart, E. a. — Spring. Preyer, j. W. — Fruit. Richter, E. — The Peddler in the East. “ “ The Presents of Lalla Rookh. Roffiaen, and Verboekhoven. — Loch Lomond. Sanfeld. — Girls in School. ScilLOSSER, C. — The Soup Tasters. “ “ The First Smoke. Schrodter, a. — Falstaff and his Recruits. Schulten, a. — Landscape. Schusselle, C. — Washington Irving and his Friends. SiMONETTi, A. — La Femme Galante. SOHN, C. — Diana and her Nymphs. Stevens, A. — After the Ball; or, the Confidence. Stiepevich, V. C. — A Dissertation. Tait, A. ¥. — Lost in the Sncnv. “ “ Grouse. Titian. — Holy Family. Tortez, V. — The Promenade. Toulmouche, a. — The Serious Book. Trochet. — The Red Cap. Troyon, C. — Cattle. “ “ Landscape and Cattle. Valles, L. — The Tei7iptation of an Ascetic. Van Huysmans. — Turkish Interior. Van Schendel, P. — Market by Moonlight. Verboekhoven, E. — The Fight. “ “ Landscape. “ “ Sheep. Verhas, j. — Flowers. Vernet, H. — Triumph of Julius Ccesar. Webb, C. M. — The Brigands. Weber, Otto. — Bavarian Courtship. Willems, F. — The Bride. “ “ The Invalid. Winterhaltp:r, F. X. — Susannah and Elders. Yvon, a. — The Genius of America. “ “ Battle of Inkemnan, u From Solferino. Zamacois, E. — The Begging Monk. “ “ Court- Jesters in the Antechamber. ZlKM, F. — Quai dei Schiavoni, Venice. “ “ View of the Doge's Palace, Venice. SCULPTURE. Aizelin, E. — Marguerite in Happiness. “ “ Marguerite in Regret. Barbee, M. R. — The Fisher Girl. Crawford. — Demosthenes. “ Flora. Durham, J. — Paul and Virginia. Hosmer, H. — Zenobia. Keyser, E. — Cavalier. Bronze. Park, R. H. — Bust, Purity. “ “ Sappho. Powers, H. — Eve before the Fall. “ “ Eve after the Fall. “ “ The Greek Slave. Rogers, R. — Nydia. Romanelli. — Tells Son. Tadolini, a. S. — The Fisher Girl. Tantardini, a. — The Bather. Ward, J. Q. A. — Bust of a Young Girl. Wood, M. — Proserpine. ,:-W- ■ ' ' 1 I t. GEBEIE 8c BARRIE »:, ■ , ' ■ ,-. . ' 't' ' ® ' -i tS.’l ^ -. ' ' '• r y;,y ;’-V^. >' >*1 : .‘; ! ;■... '. A' > .'• ?• . i- . ■ m :■ V 1' ; ■ i.. . ■'■■ , ■ J' 'C^i;'.-..!!'' !i, J» ; p" ' ■' p,' ■ ' • ■ ■ '. i 'p;\, 'f'n:. 3v;: s '...p-'. •■,: r- ,■■,■ : K^:’. •■■■'- ;V;ic:.'S lU AIk' .7>.'i:vr ,■ :■. > i.iito; ■ ■: : b.oupi,7 to AiHc-i-ica, on specuiarkxp ! ' .■ 71 gentleman ''-ly i.tc- .a«act ••.mintc- .AttVoM.*'- '•■>•.■■ New Yorjfc.. m.-- .'■;■■>, i,n. 'ITjU collect kya.' ■’ • i i:.i Dr. . ; Cbap'i'.'s'ol'.; jphn>t.!i on IJroa^'a'ay*' of'-fhr .^-pfK;Si_ i^r.'V vl?!' 'At'lc'. of'.lJu»«c rontotc :tiirie,v--bcfo^ i' . tlm-.r'.-.i y.f,7-r i.v, r;Av,':oic \\-‘.y " *'(.'■ ■ o.'s till' hafek ■)/ vvonite- 'Martrif^ ■i(.'r - l )y.-' ■ Oi •■ 'T37-'. hctr ;'rii t'" '. r .•■ , '■ ho. : >7,: ; took Mr. 1 )ur>o;ldi rf To k- _ ■ ■ , ■ , ■ .• lint .S'-> iD.iuy u7:'*ot.:s. ■' 'Dr i ■' hhi-.. .uik K the !';i!(cHc;cr of 7;'',.tiA' ■>> ; ho i '■..iioh'Dr' i;r'\’ast:-r and hlii; took p;unT to 'cakA'tr';, O' •|>r; ttcquai'iki! ... German and Vho|5 .Y'ofK.s li ■iUlr-.'d These pn».ti}cc!'i.:G ■.>;<> v«>; 4 ,*pM»g"T«JU . •••■■4-,; '• ' .ifo-aC'-; epon-tho canvases kilo ;!ii: ; D»><;nc:v'vc!-«! Add. Mc’ rrfAiOi ■ p .i'i'D.itiic' ' , . ' . • . ;...•', ■■■ ■■ -"h'- er: r' .ioh hr ' . .a M; \V‘ ,7. Collection of Mr. John Wolfe. INITIAL FROM A DESIGN BY G MITELLI. JOHN WOLFE’S name is one that belongs to the history of picture- collecting in Amer- ica. He was one of the most ge nerous purchasers of the “ D iissel- dorf pic- tures” in their day, — a collection swept together in alarm after the troubles of 1848, sent away eagerly and anxiously from the Rhineland studios in the panic of revolution, and finally brought to America, on speculation, through the audacity of a gentleman quite unacquainted with art — Mr. Baker, the New York merchant. This collection, long exhibited in Dr. Chapin’s old church on Broadway, formed the aesthetic fashion of the epoch, and the belles of those remote times — before Madison Avenue was “swell” — were in the habit of wonder- ing, between two waltzes, “how long it took Mr. Dusseldorf to paint so many pictures.” The subject of this article became the purchaser of many of the Dusseldorf canvases, and after- wards took pains to cultivate, in Europe, the acquaintance of the German and Belgian painters whose works he had ac- quired. These predilections gave a .strong Teutonic twang to the original collection of Mr. Wolfe. The Hascnclevers, the Meyerheims, the DeKeysers, the Radels, the Greiitzners, and the works of Knaus and Karl Becker, formed the keynote of the gallery, and, in the case of a few selected masterpieces, still give it character, and have culminated in the acquisition "of the principal Piloty in this country — the “ Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn” — a subject chosen by Mr. Wolfe and executed to his order. A little later, when Everard brought to this country his first unappreciated collection of English pictures, and visitors went to stare at the monstrous tableaux of “ Henry V Crowning Himself,” and the “ Death of Harold,” or to inspect, through a lens, Holman Hunt’s miniatures of the “ Eve of St. Agnes” or the “ Light of the World,” Mr. Wolfe, as a buyer whom dealers could depend on, was suc- cessfully applied to for the easement of the importer’s load. This collector, then, before the civil war, was the owner of a unique American gallery, including such conspicuous gems as Couture’s “Daydreams,” Holman Hunt’s “Light of the World,” Meissonier’s “Smoker,” Leslie’s “Anne Page and Slender,” Frere’s “Evening Prayer,” and Hasenclever’s “New Pupil.” All of the pictures mentioned are now the pride of other owners, the Wolfe primary formation having been scat- tered in 1863 or 1864 in a sale that made a sensation at the time. The more select names of Bonnat, Stevens, Lefebvre, Madrazo, Vollon, Munkacsy, Cabanel, and Breton are now signed upon the canvases holding the place of honor, and the Hasenclevers and Meyerheims, with their bibulous or gormandizing subjects, are relegated to the dinner-room. There is hardly a private house in America which con- tains a corner looking so much like a nook in a European museum as the portion of Mr. Wolfe’s residence dedicated to S3 54 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. his larger specimens. They hang, well crowded up, from the ceiling down — the great draperies of canvas, on which the eye makes out contours and attitudes of life-size figures ; not one or two sheets together, but a whole wall of them, and then, at right angles, another wall similarly paneled. The huge, gilded frames rise to the cornice like pilasters, rubbing their fretted edges or parting with their external mouldings to bury them- selves in a reserved space. The effect is like that of some corner of the Luxembourg Gallery. Other collectors are afraid of big pictures, and in their interviews with Goupil or Petit order talents of just three feet by two, or inspirations strictly confined to kit-cat. This connoisseur has recognized that the beauty and value of a conception are occasionally dependent on its development. A Bonnat, a Cot, a Makart, a Bouguereau — each the expression of an artist at his best — are all ample pictures. Accordingly Mr. Wolfe’s collection, though distributed through a mansion that does not contain a special gallery, conveys in an extraordinary degree the spacious sense that breathes through some palace musee of the old world. The Bouguereau in the Wolfe collection is so unexpec- tedly fine an exception that one is tempted to drop the lance which habitual prejudice puts into the hand of anybody who is taken to admire a Bouguereau. It is the “Satyr and Nymphs” (5 X 10 feet,) painted in 1873. Four or five life-size women of the woods have caught a goat-faced satyr at a disadvantage, and are pulling him into the water by the arms, the ears and the horns. Here are forms of real rounded relief and pre- cipitate action, a wonderful achievement for Bouguereau ; here are real windy, balancing trees to form a dark relief for them ; the whole combination of life and spirit being so striking that the eye, in high good-humor, is ready to bear witness that the skins of the people are really palpitating and compressible in this case — not Bouguereau parchments scraped down with a razor. The foremost woman is particularly well designed; she really seems to be moving spiritedly away from the spectator, as her polished back leans toiling towards the FEMME COUCHEE. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE STUDY IN OIL BY JULES LBFEBVKE. victim she has seized ; her elastic feet grasp the bank along which she climbs, and the light, attracted and cajoled by the long wedge of tempting white flesh, slides gaily down to the eye along the ivory incline of her form, from the head that leans into the background, over the slippery back of her limbs, with their rounded, straining muscles. The trouble with the picture is that the people are ladies, not Mmnads or Bacchants. Their undressing is accidental or prurient, not ignorant. Look at any of their faces, and you feel that they need not insult your reason by pretending not to know how to write modern French and read the fashion-newspaper. Cot’s “Springtime” (4x8 feet,) painted in 1873, hangs beside. It is a life-size boy and girl, in the most dangerous and inflammable of the teens, dangling in a swing among the trees of some Greek garden. A bold plunge into antiquity and primitive idyl, combined with a truly modern French con- sciousness of the philosophy of voluptuousness, have made the fortune of pictures like this and like Gerome’s “Cockfight.” This revelling pair of children, drunken with first love, are not really Greek, — the whole budget of Tanagra statuettes, with their demureness and modesty of acting love, rises in the mind to forbid the thought ; but they are not quite modern either, for they have escaped our awkwardness and hobbledehoy-hood. The cunning eagerness with which the maid looks right into the boy’s eyes is modern in meaning and antique in dress ; hence the acceptability of this Arcadian idyl, peppered with French spice. The painter is from the south of France, ardent, rude, young, and uncultured. When he had prepared the pic- ture, he felt that he needed a title or a text of scholarly distinc- tion. His own limited reading not furnishing him with anything very novel, he applied to a friend. Dr. Soulage, the electrician, of New York, whom I have heard relate the anecdote; and this auxiliary was able to come to the rescue with that pretty Italian couplet now always quoted with the picture : O primavera, gioventud del anno ! O gioventud, primavera della vita I The Bonnat in Mr. Wolfe’s gallery is perhaps the finest specimen known to private collections. It has the statuesque emphasis and relief of his “ Le Christ,” and the ethnographic analysis of his more familiar peasant subjects. The topic is a “Fellah Woman,” 1870, (4x9 feet) carrying her babe, a group studied from life while Bonnat was attending the ceremonies of opening the Suez canal. The black, heavy air of an Egyp- tian twilight closes round the lonely mother, who stands among the heavy exhalations of the Nile, darker than they, with downcast, lethargic eyes. Her baby, a little naked frog- like animal, curls around her shoulders, dangling his bended toes over her breast, and curling his lean arms around her forehead, on which he drops his heavy head in slumber. Neither of them expects anything or has any hope. The woman is strong and of savage symmetry, with the inatten- tive placidity of a granite Memnon that has long since ceased to sing. In technical execution the group has a final and masterly expression, and the brush seems to have worked with the grand cutting strokes of a Michael Angelo chisel, satisfied and sure that when the definitive blow was given there was nothing more to be said and no more labor to be done. The modeling and planes are understood with the realism of those artists who work a la tache, and busy them- selves to get each facet of surface at its exact and proper distance from the spectator’s eye, as distinguished from those who work especially for outlines, and would make a figure a • .*): V'^ i- ■ ■ ■' 'k'i 'i i !••' 1 w.**i ' •■K- 'srin-r -,‘v/, "Jfo'w c\ ; '•• • ■?; .'•i.-: ■ •- .. i' ■ '. ..:! i . ■ . ;■.■!,■ ? ’An^! ■■"i.i'V' '■'» . V 1 ■' -i- ... ., .'•>5 'j-'i;.r>,- ;;'n'l.,ri<rt- . Apki- ^7 ■V.."-- ' .{ ■ . 'r.-. i. Ihiiw >;<;V <''.U'..’':.iiVi;>fisse’. ■. ■ '\ ■■ • ''’!'■■■ V: k ;i:f.;nied ;l:0 '■■v:- ..«;^'*C-r'.V ’ ■•!:■ ..irl;.v '.; .. - :., ■■■ ■'■',*•■ ■■- ■ . ‘.pir 'J'-crif. : ,./-■ -■-• /.'(tuifle niakfts the nioi.je -‘i nuister -.-.t'- :.,iV:- ■?■' ■ Aart niake.’i hoi- iii«. ./roup^ .ri'- ' ; ■vur.iiaL'hatiue, and hii ■ •;i.- ■■ .tf': ;' V-.,'i;v\ra •.■....■ ,y by til e ■ , aruJ » .t'.a 1'!: .■! .mm m aiiib,: ■'C ' ^ ' . <. '.iie K'OSt: -ir at a fire or v>*^ue 0,1 ■ - -'^7.'' -a'; ''' ■ ■ 1 ,/ ■ , . .,'. -_.; •.'^xua':'.: d‘‘" ■■■■' ■■ t : ■• !■ i. -4v . ftf the ,x’- hi-; ■.. >■■ ;.. ny: v'/ ;.*iv9 i:‘ '- •' aiUJ E.\). ■ ;'>■ t;l- " •-! ;n-f' .. .■ : .. "’mM ■ '■‘■r,. ■ . , 'P:. ag-l: •1. , ;/: y ■ .. 'M THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE. 55 transparent and flimsy diagram of contours^the Davids and Bouguereaus of art ; the conscientious academy-worker will best understand this distinction. At the same time the painter MOORISH JEWESS. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY E. VERNET-LECOMTE. borrows from the craft of modeling a series of effects proper to that science, and elaborates his forms with an aggressive solidity, so pure and detached, that the eye checks at every boss, sinks into every cavity, and feels like passing completely around and behind the object. The leg of the infant, rising easily on the mother’s shoulder, might be espe- cially pointed out as a lesson in the science of design, round as a terra-cotta sculpture, firm and vibratory like a bar of projecting steel, tough as the remainder leather “ left in the pit when the tanner died,” and at the same time alive with tendons, muscle-fibre and bones. Even Ribera has not car- ried further the illusion of making so many inches of flat paint look like a rounded and relieved object, while this piece of work avoids his helpful trick of raising the salient sur- faces by means of sharp high-lights. Again, the robe of the woman, — a dark blue curtain of burl}' folds, that rumple into rippled creases over their large laps and flutings, — is designed with monumental firmness. This simple vision of coarse cotton stuff — a notion of texture the artist has derived from some original long since made up into paper — is as solid to the sense as any fireproof-door. Would it yield, you wonder, at a fire or a demolition, or would it not rather survive from the inherent virtue of the idea that is in it, as the warped copper legs of the Vatican Hercules have kept their sheeted strength through the changes of war and time ? Mr. Bonnat has made the world richer with a picture that has no piquancy of subject or anecdote, but which seems to extend the possi- ble boundaries of the art of painting. Alongside is the picture of “Fellah Women,” by Makart, (4x9 feet,) painted in 1874, awarded a gold medal at the Vienna Exhibition of 1876. The problem in the artist’s mind was so different from the last, that it seems cruel to insist on any comparison. This is a problem of grace and “tone.” “Tone,” said an intellectual poetry-reading artist to me contemptuou.sly the other day, “tone is simply bitume.” He went on to explain how a crude picture, painted narra- tively perhaps in the English style, with an eye for expres- sions of faces and selection of types, became instantly a thing of “tone” by the simple expedient of being “frotte de bitume'' Before it was a raw scheme of color, without any surface ; now, it is a thing of tenderness, depth and harmony, a jewel for the aesthetic to sigh over; and the secret is just “bitume.” By this cheap and royal way of getting at artistic distinction, Makart has arrived at a work of tone. Two Egyptian women stand by a fountain, with large jars, one stooping and looking up at the other, who balances a jar on her head, and accom- modates in the crook of her elbow a little thumb-sucking pickaninny with ophthalmic eyes. Beside the Bonnat, these figures look like thin, embossed reliefs in a sheet of gelatine ; the reality, the impenetrability of matter, is wanting. And in the great desideratum of tone — though the Bonnat may be granted to be rather opaque and blackish — the Vienna painter’s research for air and transparency is plainly a recipe of “ bitume.” Bitume makes the softness of these dark skins ; bitume makes the air, which clusters in deeper and deeper shadows towards the corners ; bitume makes the niche of rocks in which the women stand. A clever master of tem- porary illusions though he be, Makart makes for his groups an effect of theatre-lights like nothing in nature, and his types are actresses and actors, idealized out of all naturalness by the stage idealization of painting-up and costuming and posing. The Tableau Makart can represent — the Picture, never. NORMANDY GIRL AT A FOUNTAIN. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JULES BRETON. The four large pictures above described are those which, hanging togethei', particularly give to one of the rooms the spacious air of a European governmental collection. But 56 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. there are other canvases of monumental size hung as centres in various chambers of the mansion, or lending their emphasis to walls begemmed with miniature works. Thus Cabanel’s “ Venus” is the decoration of a favored space, above a range of bronze statuary, whereamong shines Clesinger’s restoration of the Parthenon “Fates.” The “Venus” has been three times repeated by Cabanel. The large life-size original, seen at the 1867 Exposition, was the Emperor’s private property: the present example, a little smaller, was painted to Mr. Wolfe’s order; and another, still somewhat less in size and of paler colors, is in the Philadelphia collection of Mr. Gibson. It is a subject where Love is treated in a purely amusing and pleas- ure-seeking manner, without an idea of the antique serious- ness. The goddess is just born, and lies undulating upon the and importance. Its interest is damaged by the great unin- teresting spaces of empty paint, employed to separate from other pictures in a Salon that concentration of living jewels which is formed by the grapes and orange in the middle, and which makes the motif Vollon is interested in painting. The intelligent, modern Frenchman thus jockeys the hanging- committee of the Palais de I’Industrie, who insist that exhibi- tion pictures shall touch each other, instead of being separated by hangings, as at the Grosvenor. Determined to secure an artistic solitude around his principal object, he makes it with a flat border-land of neutral color. The present picture has for its chief theme the fiery topaz-jewel of a broken orange, around which are Chasselas and purple grapes. No one, since the old Dutch masters, has so painted the spangled pulps and MORNING. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. B. C. COROT. foam, stretching and half-opening her long-dazzled eyes which she shades with her arm. Five genii — little winged puddings most unconscientiously drawn-fly around her head, awakening her with their whispers of adoration, or playing upon conch- shells. The ambition of Cabanel in this picture was hardly more grave than that of a Boucher or a Fragonard. The form of his personage suffers from bonelessness ; but Bonnat himself could not, perhaps, have given much anatomical defi- nition to a scheme of intentionally blonde tones, where the deepest shadow is itself a light. The buoyancy with which the Venus floats, the irresponsible innocence of her mischief, and to some extent the success of modeling in a gamut of very high values, constitute the merit of the picture, which, however, is willingly left by the critic to the admiration of the sentimental and easily-pleased multitude. A family por- trait, also by Cabanel, is found among the canvases of the collection, an achievement of two short sittings, and a spirited piece of sketch-work with the brush. By Vollon there is a still-life (48 x 36) of great excellence juices of bountiful nature. Behind the fruits rise the paunchy forms of Dresden soup-tureen and dish, with their dead, stony glitter. Lefebvre’s “Femme Couchee” (18 x 12 inches) is the color-study of a larger picture painted in 1865 for Alexandre Dumas fils, who retains it. A nude girl stretches horizon- tally, couched on her right side, her right hand doubled up under the chin, her left extended along the back of the lounge. The eyes are open and attentive, which gives an unusual and disquieting expression to this attitude otherwise marked with repose. The whole torso, with its play of in- terchanging curves, leans before the eye against the back of the lounge like a long bas-relief reared against a wall, and the attention is engaged above all things, in a study so carefully scientific as this, with the elasticity of the human machine, the interdependent strength of the flesh that hangs in festoons from joint to joint, the flow of superfluous soft- ness around the knee, laid sidewise, and other such matters belonging to constructive drawing. As compared with the FELLAH WOMEN AT A FOUNTAIN. PROM THE ORieiNAL PAINTING BY HANS MAKABT. IN THE COLLECTION OF ME. JOHN WOLFE, NEW YORK. THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE. 57 Cabanel nudity, this seems a work of computation and dis- section— that a work of pure and enjoyed, though not very deep, feeling. A small specimen of the crisp, graphic talent of J. G. Vibert represents “ Selling Palm-Branches on Palm-Sunday.” It is one of his piquant sketches of real life, taken in Spain, a country which has afforded the artist many of his most clearly-cut impressions. A Spanish peasant-girl, standing, partly supported by the rich carvings at a church door, holds in her hand a fanciful palm-branch, while behind her are bouquets of similar specimens, contained in a pair of elegantly- woven baskets or frails. The branches which the traveler sees offered for sale, on this festival, in Italy or Spain, are far more decorative than the simple sprigs of box with which our American worshipers are obliged to content themselves. They are long, fine branches of veritable palm, of which the fine, flat leaves' are woven in-and-out, in a sort of basket-work, so as to make the tuft present a highly ornamental and arti- ficial appearance, more like a huge cockade of ribbons than like a natural sprig of leafage. The foliage is completely dried, and assumes the light, straw-like color familiar to us in the common palm-leaf fan. A large sheaf of these emblems, held for purchasers at the door of some village church by the sweetest and most attractive girl of the hamlet, forms a quaint, elegant bouquet, of which, of course, the fair negotiator con- stitutes the principal flower. Vibert is a born Parisian, forty years of age. There are two beautiful paintings in the collection by Jules Breton, the poet-artist of Courrieres. The smaller and SELLING CONSECRATED PALMS AT A CHURCH-DOOR IN SPAIN. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. G. VIBERT. better (12 x 18 inches) represents “A Normandy Girl at the Fountain,” and shows a healthy, simple child of twelve, with the thick white cap around her brows and the flowered kerchief crossed over her bust, stooping to dabble her round, brown fingers in the spring that pours over a plain, unsculp- tured block of stone. Her sun-burned arms are bare to the THE LOST DAUPHIN. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JULES GOUPIL. elbow, and she is guiltless of stockings or shoes. The lean- ing, half-spiral attitude of her body is full of the natural grace of frank health and youthful vigor. She is completely rustic and unspoilt by the borrowed charms of cultivation. These happy French country children have not the burning eyes and dangerous classic beauty of the Italian, nor the slim, serpen- tine precocity, promising so much ardor and passion at the moment of unfolding, characteristic of the young maids of Spain ; but they possess a healthful simplicity and a tranquil directness of character that make them attractive. Breton knows better than to dress them off with ideal graces beyond their station. With a pure, plain, robust little model before him — a simple costume as close and fitting as the calyx around the corolla — he can make a figure of simple sylvan nature that refreshes the sight like a wood-flower or a sportive animal. His larger canvas shows the “ Penitent of Brittany” (36 X 48 inches). Kneeling in church, holding an enormous lighted taper, and exhibiting the severe, almost classical straight-nosed profile which is common with these unmixed races of Brittany, the self-collected penitent rises like a statue from the cold, stone floor, as if she would never change her posture till the stone saints of the altar changed theirs. Although her penitence has the stamp of such sincerity and profoundness, her sins can hardly be very deep — not much thicker than the coat of tan which has come upon her fore- THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. S8 head and cheeks from contact with the out-door world. She has simply led the exposed life of the work-day nature around THE SCORCHED CAT. FAC-SIMILB OF A SKETCH FKOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY L. E. LAMBERT. the sanctuary, and a little of its cark and dimness may have settled on her character as on her complexion. If one of the wax-faced Breton nuns were beside her, with her pure brow whitened by perpetual seclusion, we should see the difference. But, is her nature any the less healthy, marked with the colors of the live air and light, than if she were saved from the shadow of contamination like the cloistered nun? The recluse may be whiter, but she does no task in the movement of the world. The woman of action, though she may be a little sun-baked and darkened by the conditions of her life, and though she feels the need of these long purifications with burning taper and bended knee, haS' helped along the work of the earth that has to be done, and in the sight of the wise intelligences around us may offer as pure a brow as her secluded sister. Breton was born at Courrieres in 1827. Charles Chaplin is the painter of artful and polished graces, of worldly elegance, of rusticity as understood in cities, of theatrical bergerades, of innocent maids supremely conscious of their innocence. “The Dove” is a small picture, exhibiting one of the pretty maids who seem to inhabit his studio in profusion, kittenish, simple, voluptuously round, and calling on all visitors to observe how guileless they are. This one caresses a pigeon ; others of the family may be seen trifling with a flower, or neglecting a baby which they have hardly intelligence enough to love, and which they seem to wish were some winged Cupid that they could accept as pure allegory. Chaplin essays to produce in our own time the prettiness of Greuze and Boucher; but our time, though not more virtuous than the time of Greuze and Boucher, has a keener brain and a more cultivated taste, and is not in the least deceived by exhibitions of stage-innocence. Chaplin’s ideal is pleasing, so long as it strictly confines itself to the pretensions of decorative art; though even then there are mis- givings, owing to his confirmed inability to paint flesh, and his persistent chalkiness. As to any human sympathy that it is possible to feel for his satin shepherdesses and pomaded purity, the best-natured view to take of the personages is that they are unreal beings, created of the lime and fresco of the ceilings he decorates so elegantly. Chaplin was born at Anderlys, of an English father, in 1825, and earned a medal at Paris so long ago as 1851. Louis Leloir’s “ Zephyr” is one of his graceful little ornaments, imprisoning a fresh and pretty fancy, and obvi- ously belonging to fan-painting art. An airy creature, with sylph-like slenderness of form, balances on a blossoming fruit- tree twig, where she sits like a child on a swing, and makes no use of the enormous pair of butterfly wings that spread behind her back. The spotted wings, barred and striped in tiger fashion, with the silhouette of the form and the Japanese J THE DOVE. FROM THE OBIGINAH -WATEB-COLOB BY CH. CHAPLIN, IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE, NEW YORK. ■k . >'i--iai;iaLASfe;iMaa^ .^ .r ,, THE COLLECTION OE MR. JOHN WOLEE. 59 decoration of the flowery branch, are all painted against the pale and shell-like colors of the sky, which they marble with their fantastic tracery. There is no effort made to match the scale of the butterfly wings with the scale of the blossoms. The former are as big as the hand-screens we use, and seem among the diminished flowers almost painfully gigantic, like the flies that annoyed Gulliver in the land of Brobdingnag. Slight as it is in motive, and cheap in invention, M. Leloir’s unsexed fancy of a female Zephyr fills out a paltry oppor- tunity with ample measures of grace and airiness. The artist is one of a family of painters, Parisian born. THE INVENTION OF THE ART OF DESIGN : THE DAUGHTER OF DIBUTANTES AND HER LOVER. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY N. DE KEVSEK. By Jules Goupil, a pupil of Ary Scheffer, is the “Citoyen de Pan IV,” or, “ The Lost Dauphin” (24 x 36 inches.) It is a half-length portrait, painted in 1873, of some snub-nosed little model, with long, lank hair and vacant expression, whom the painter has clothed in the heavy cocked hat and exaggerated coat-collar of the early Republic. Seen in profile, and resting his heavy head against the rounded back of a Louis-Seize chair, the child looks straight before him, with drooping-lided eye, and holds his heavy lip ajar, like an imperfect intelligence stunned by great events or waiting for prodigious opportuni- ties. The style of painting is very broad and sincere, with full morbidesza for the flesh and decisive firm brushing for the stuffs of the costume. The quaint, fantastic dress of the incroyable had been already adopted by modern French art for a host of comical or buffo subjects, and was beginning to pall, when the painter of this picture, by weighing down with it the innocent figure of a little child, and making it seem like the oppressive swaddling-bands of a new political birth, gave point to his very peculiar moral and novelty to his subject. Spectators felt as if they saw, in this image of a complaisant infant — condemned by the hatter and the tailor and the fashion-plate artist to carry the ponderous livery of Danton or Mirabeau — i an allegory of the young Republic, half stupefied with the responsibility of modes and manners perhaps too mature for its strength. American spectators, whose thoughts fly at once to the more sensational epochs of history, are determined to recog- nize in the picture an image of the young Dauphin, rigged out by the Jacobins, in mockery, with the dress of the new order. ‘‘The Moorish Jewess” (12 x 22 inches) is by Charles Hippolyte Emile Vernet-Lecomte, a relative of the famous Horace Vernet, and his pupil. It is one of the numerous ori- ental subjects, such as “The Almeh” and “ Young Fellah Girl,” which the painter has drawn from his experience of African life. Relieved against the lattices and balustrades of some Morocco courtyard, the African Jewess — flower of a race that has grown rich amid all sorts of oppression among the ruins of Dido’s civilization — shows full-front to the gazer her indo- lent face and glittering costume. Bracelets of heavy and barbaric gold, rich plaques of jewels, like the high-priest’s breastplate, and the globes of two languid, glittering eyes begem this animal-like being, that has grown fat in the im- prisonment of a rank and wealthy Ghetto. The vail is thrown frankly back from her broad, unabashed face ; it is not the seclusion of the harem, but the despised liberty of a far older national tradition. Contemned by the most ragged and filthy -Arab as of an inferior race, yet conscious of wealth, of an immemorial faith, the daughter of Isaac seems to tolerate and endure, rather than hate, the sons of Ishmael who swarm around her in the city. The type is comprehended by the artist with delicacy and understanding ; the style is somewhat conventional, but faithful, intelligent and true. M. Vernet- Lecomte is one of the older of contemporary French painters, having received the honor of a medal so long since as 1846. By Gerorae there is an unimportant picture of a “Cir- cassian Girl,” limited in extent, though as the representation includes little more than the head and the hand which grasps the stem of the narghileh, there is room for a scale of feature and accessory rather large for him. Gerome has generally but mediocre success in flesh-painting that exceeds the scale of the ordinary photograph album, and in this instance, besides the perfunctory look of a study prepared obviously to sell, there is a tightened, strained look about the smooth features, as of a picture painted on an elastic substance and stretched till all becomes glossy and drum-like. Still, as it is simply impossible for Gerome to paint without enclosing in his work some valuable ethnographic study, he gives us in this little panel a decidedly striking and uncomfortable tran- script of an empty mind and unfurnished character, forbidden to blossom in the incarceration of the seraglio, and become hard, pitiless, feelingless, and unhuman by the conditions of a monstrous social system. 6o THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. James Bertrand, of Lyons and Paris, who has painted so many pictorial elegies soliciting us to weep for the woes of Ophelia, or Marguerite, or Lesbia, or Magdalen, is represented in Mr. Wolfe’s collection by a small replica of his “Virginia,” of which the larger copy, painted in 1869, and 1.86 metres by 84 centimetres in size, was honored by being selected for the Luxembourg Gallery. The heroine of Bernardin de Saint- Pierre’s story is represented as dead, after the shipwreck, cast up among the tepid waves of the Mauritius shore. She lies horizontally and upon her side, her hands clasped in front, revealing that exquisite modesty which was the cause of her death. Around her form clings the drapery of a striped, thin, tropical-looking material, which she refused to cast aside to help the chance of her being saved. This exaggerated sen- timent of propriety, perhaps not quite free from self-con- sciousness, has been lauded by some as an exquisite touch of the writer’s, and blowed by others with an acuteness, which is itself not without a suspicion of pruriency. Whether the impulse was an absurd or a simple and maidenly one, few readers would have had the poor child behave otherwise, and the trait is a part of that fresh, pure, virginal union of qualities which make up the sweet personality of Virginia. Gustave Brion (1824—1827) is shown by his animated “ Bridal in Alsace” (48 x 36 inches.) It is a gay and crowded procession, with decorated carts bearing the brightly-painted wedding furniture of the new household, and including a representation of the pretty Alsatian custom which commands all the guests to pay toll to the bride, in the form of bouquets or small presents. The specimen is a happy example of Brion’s solid, manly, serious, but not severe, talent. His illus- trations to Notre Dame de Paris and Les Miserables show the more burly and solid qualities, fixing the types as sternly and inexorably as carvings by Peter Fischer in a Gothic church ; examples like the present reveal his occasionally gay and amiable transcripts of the happy peasant life he loved. Georges Clairin, the comrade of Henri Regnault and Fortuny, and one of those young voluptuaries who aim to translate into French the glitter of the so-called Spani.sh- PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST. ENGRAVED BY J. GUILLAUME, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY F. P. HASSECLEVER. . ■ ■ ■ <;: THE RINGo BARRIE, PHILADELPHIA. m I ik THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE. 6i Roman school, is revealed in a brilliant “Scene in Morocco,” with the entrance to a sumptuous harem, and suitable figures. The black chamberlain ushers into a splendid doorway the proud, sallow, passionless master of the seraglio. Edouard Frere is present, of course, with his budget of studies from the village life of Ecouen. An oil-picture shows the “ Noonday Meal.” There are four figures grouped around an humble board. These figures seem too small for the scale of the room, and the whole effect of the picture is hard and wooden for Frere. A small water-color shows incipient peas- ant vanity, with a little country girl getting her ears pierced for “ The First Earring.” Leon y Escosura contributes a small picture, showing Murillo painting in the presence of the king. Philip IV shows himself to be on the most familiar terms of conde- scension with the tender and devout young painter of Seville, and the palace walls are represented as already studded with some of those masterpieces of Velasquez and Zurbaran which at present form its glory. Lambert, the chief of modern cat-painters, departs from the usual happy and unclouded choice of his themes to exhibit a spectacle of feline misery. Is this the original “ cat that was killed by care ?” A superb Angora, in great agony, recoils from a steaming milk-jug, in which it has imprudently boiled its nose, and life seems to have no more charms for the unfortunate gourmand. The picture of “ The Scorched Cat” is 14 X 24 inches. The large cup and saucer, the bread-knife with, porcelain handle, and the fuming cream-pot with hinged lid, speak of the ordinary French morning-meal, anticipating the breakfast, and consisting of simple bread and cafe au lait. The proprietor, overcome by morning slumbers, is not yet on the scene, and the enormous matou determines to have the first taste, with results fatal to his own peace. We rather like this disproof of that detestable proverb about the “ early bird.” In this case the early bird gets a decided “bite.” The master, who will receive his breakfast cold, will be punished in another way, but at least he can comfort himself over his frigid cheer with the thought that he has fully done his duty by his kind friend Morpheus. Berne-Bellecour, one of the amusing painters who tread in the footprints of Vibert, shows in a small picture “The Infatuated Lover.” He is a romantic youth who climbs to kiss the painted hand of a portrait of a fair dame hanging on the wall. The costume is that of Henri III, with silken doublet and luxurious foppery. The question arises in the mind whether these were portraits painted in such a modern style at the epoch determined by the costume of the young gallant. “On the Ramparts,” also by Berne-Bellecour, is a little painting with a single military figure. Jules Worms, a skillful Paris painter, who applies a very solid and serious style to themes too frequently trivial, is exemplified by small, good pictures of “A Spanish Serenader,” standing under the railed window of his inamorata, and “A Spanish Volunteer.” Detaille, the best of the modern painters of micro-pho- tographic style, contributes a small -but exceptionally freely and richly-painted specimen, showing an engagement between a Cossack and a French hussar, in Napoleon’s Russian cam- paign. The picture blooms with a brilliant and decorative chiaroscuro, rare for the painter, and the figures with their horses, in frantic action, avoid the frigid model-painting look of many of Detaille’s subjects. This small panel is a gem, decidedly superior to many a Meissonier of equally high finish and similar size. Alfred Stevens is shown in a very characteristic, and better than beautiful, specimen called “Coquetry,” or “The Language of the Fan” (12 x 18 inches). A confirmed flirt, of wily and experienced visage, all nerves and brains, without the softening mitigation of adipose tissue, has drawn one THE CONNOISSEUR. FAC -SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY ED. GREUTZNER. cream-colored glove, and manages her dark Spanish fan with a world of provocative expression. This is a bust-picture, full-face. “ The Andalusian” is a life-size dark-skinned head, with the national dress, by Ramon de Madrazo, painted in his peculiar crisp, hardy, decided style, with effects like the firm yet delicate touches of a sculptor modeling in clay. Landelle, in his romantic, poetic manner, smacking of Bouguereau and Portaels, shows “Spiritual Consolation” (2J^ X cj/2 feet,) representing a group of calm and considerate and benevolent angels standing around a sorrowing soul, repentant of its sins or overcome with affliction. This stately composi- tion has been a favorite in photographs and engravings. Hugues Merle is represented by a standing figure of a wistful girl, with depth of character apparently above her station, supposed to be a “ Washing-Girl of Etretat” (14 x 24 62 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. inches.) This is the small color-study for the completed picture in the gallery of Mr. Fairman Rogers. The peculiar, natural arched rock of Etretat is perceived in the background. Dore is seen as an oil-painter in the “ Don Quixote Entertained by the Student and his Wife,” a working over with the paint-tubes of what he has better done on the box- wcJod, in the well known illustrated edition of Cervantes. The student, a genial specimen of natural Spanish courtesy, clasps the knight’s hand and looks at him with exquisite indulgence and young protection, while his young bride — her face surrounded with a voluminous wimple — gazes fondly at both, and Sancho fills his bottomless appetite at the table behind. Dore’s utter inability to paint like a painter finds a dismal exemplification in the attempt, but there is strong graphic ingenuity to redeem the misadventure. Fortuny is exemplified by one of his best pen-and-inks, well known from a reproduction to be found in the shops, of an old General of the' Directoire, sitting and handling the pommel of his cane. De Coninck shows a smiling, life-size, girl’s head and bust, and a pair of plump hands engaged in trying on “ The Ring.” It is a generous, freely-laughing peasant-girl of the Campagna, in the usual peasant costume. The bauble can hardly be an engagement ring, for it is not worn on the ring-finger, but on the medius. Desgoffe, on a canvas 22 x l8 inches, depicts a selection of the jewels in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre, particularly designated for representation by Mr. Wolfe. A fan of Marie Antoinette’s, and a cup of red agate mounted by Cellini, are among the objects delineated in the picture, which was painted for its present owner in 1871. The specimen of Corot is a good example of his peculiar dreamy and half-hinted style, so full of suggestion and poetry. A fisherman pushes off his punt from shore, in a soft sunrise light that floods the river and softens with velvety lustre the shaggy group of pollard willows at the left. This example is in the blondest tone of Corot, a pearl of silvery radiance, and of “obscurity” that does not depend on shadow for its tanta- lizing mystery. Its size is 14 x 12 inches. De Keyser’s “Origin of the Arts of Design” (18 x 24 inches) is one of the surviving pictures of the German school included by Mr. Wolfe from his earlier collection ; he parted with the same artist’s “ Milton Dictating to his Daughters,” at the sale of 1854, obtaining $2AfiO for it. Beule, the archmolo- gist, thus narrates the legend by which the potters of Corinth were in the habit of attributing to their craft the beginnings at once of portrait art and modeling figures in clay. “The Corin- thians claimed for Dibutades and his daughter, Cora, the honor of this discovery; they related that one evening Cora traced with a knife the outline of her lover’s profile, whose shadow was thrown on the wall. Seeing this, the father, who was a maker of vases, took some moistened clay, made an impression, and had it fired in his furnace.” The painter introduces some vases in the foreground to indicate the profession of Cora’s father. Nicaise de Keyser was born in 1813, and is President of the Academy of Antwerp, on the grand staircase of which building are to be seen his decorative paintings representing the “ History of Art.” A larger subject by De Keyser, in the Wolfe gallery, is “Love’s Young Dream,” showing two young classic maidens crouching on the turf in a sunny glade, and ex- changing their confidences on the infinite science of the heart. A pendant to this picture, whose figures are life-size, is hung on the other side of a broad chimney-piece, and is by August Riedel, the German professor at St. Luke’s Academy in Rome, representing “Cupid and Psyche at the Fountain of Love.” By Carl Becker is the pleasant and able picture, painted with a sure hand and confidence in the art of amusing, entitled THE FOX INVITES THE STORK TO DINNER. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY P. F. MEYERHEIM. “ Fiigger the Banker Burning the Bonds of Charles V,” (7x5 feet.) Becker, now Vice-President of the Academy of Berlin, was born in that city in 1820. He represents decorative his- torical scenes, used as a pretext for the introduction of the rich velvets and brocades he paints so seductively. Pupil of Cornelius, he has never felt the slightest vocation for Cornelius’ asceticism and miracle-plays, but he turned straight to the savory attractions of texture-painting and still-life, among which we sometimes notice a head, an expression or a senti- ment, not too clumsily indicated ; the bric-a-brac of the subject, however, is what engages his heart and soul, and this he luxuriates in with an easy superficial enjoyment, in a .style and degree of ability characteristic of the better Teutonic school. PROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY CARL BECKER, IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE, NEW YORK. THE COLLECTION OF MR. JOHN WOLFE. 63 and shared with him in about equal measure by Hamman, Carl Hoff, and Benjamin Vautier. The subject here represented is an episode which Augsburg still remembers with pride, and is one of the pleasantest local histories connected with Charles V, whose conduct outside of Spain is so seldom satisfactory. In this case Charles has just made his triumphant expedition into Africa (1532,) overcome Barbarossa, and restored to liberty numbers of captive Christians. The funds for this costly war had been largely supplied by Fugger, the great Augsburg banker, but when the emperor visited him in his luxurious home at Augsburg, a fire of cinnamon and other spices was prepared, and the monarch’s bonds burned before his eyes in that fragrant crematory, the money-king choosing thus to thank the man of action for destroying pirates and rendering business safer. The Fiiggers, in various ofifices and manifesta- tions, were the grand tutelary family of Augsburg. Just before this date, Haldric Fugger was Chamberlain to Pope Paul III, but joined the Reformers, and eventually left his fine library to Heidelberg ; some were ennobled by Maximilian ; one was the patron of Estienne, the great French typographer. The race even now exists and has given its name to a hamlet near Augsburg, while in that city is still pointed out, as the tavern of the “Three Moors,” the fine old building which was the scene of the painter’s incident, to be read of at length in Robertson’s Charles V. Riefstahl, a sober and profoundly conscientious artist, whose treatment of air and light as distributed over crowds of figures is equally excellent, whether in the free mountain landscape or in the shadowy interior, is represented by an important and large example, showing “ Capuchins Celebrating Mass” (6x4 feet.) In a huge, bare, rustic chapel of some rock- built monastery are seen the thronging prisoners of religion, their spare, weather-beaten faces telling of hard lives and charitable labors in the bleak world outside. The light of day is breaking through the window, while night still reigns in the barn-like church, broken by the candles which the brothers carry in their slow procession around the room. An immense wooden reading-desk — rough and primitive as Noah’s Ark — sustains the pile of splendidly executed music-books in the centre. This ample picture is painted with singular gravity, conscience and breadth. The famous Piloty is seen in an example almost as large and elaborate as the “Thusnelda” of Mrs. Stewart’s collection — a rich and dazzling effort executed to Mr. Wolfe’s order and devoted to a subject of his selection, “ Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn” (5x4 feet.) The incident is that so vividly presented in the first act of Shakespeare’s final and concluding play in his gigantic historical series. It is the festival at York Place, with a dais or “ place of state” for Cardinal Wolsey, who is seen in the background, while in front, upon a carved bench, is transacted that coquetry of royal favor and ancillary grace which changed the face of English history and resulted in protestantizing Anglo-Saxon Christendom. The smile that did all this is planted on the lips of Anne Boleyn, and the king is about to reap it from them with a kiss. “ Sweetheart, I were unmannerly to take you out and not to kiss you !” the drama makes Henry say. A bevy of beautiful court ladies, with Sands, Lovel, and the Chamberlain, people the rich architec- ture of the room, through which a golden light of almost theatrical garishness falls over the splendid dresses and gallant forms. Comparing this with such a work as Becker’s “ Fugger the Banker” we find Piloty inferior to him in treating bric-a- brac subjects with breadth and unity, while more ambitious in searching for varied decorations and diversified effects. The scheme of light here is completely arbitrary, and smacks of the stage. The whole jewel-tray of aggressive colors, enough to have lasted Veronese all around the four walls of a refec- THE STORK INVITES THE FOX TO DINNER. FAC -SIMILE “OF A SKETCH FKOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY P. F. MEYEKKEIM. tory, is squeezed into an armload of concentrated antitheses. But it is dramatic in the good sense, if it is theatrical in the bad sense. Like his other compositions owned in New York — the “Thusnelda” and the “Death of C®sar” — it shows the historical talent, the power to interest us in his high-colored Gothic embroidery of a given event. By this ability Kaul- bach will always seem superior to mere texture painters and decorators like Carl Becker. Hasenclever’s life-size portrait of himself (3x5 feet) occupies a conspicuous station in the dining-room. This Diisseldorf artist was born in 1810, and died in 1853. The self-painted portrait is a whole biography; it represents him in the act of rising from a table in his studio, flourishing a 64 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. ronier of hock. His picture of the “Wine-Tasters” is seen sketched on the easel before him, and upon the table is the book he so brilliantly illustrated— the This work is the only comic mock-epic poem in the German tongue which has achieved lasting popularity ; it was written by E. A. Kortym, a physician of Bochum, in Westphalia, who died in 1824, and narrates the adventures of a braggadocio student who ends as a night-watchman. The several paintings ex- ecuted by Hasenclever from this work, resembling Hogarth’s Rakes Progress, formed part of the old Diisseldorf Gallery in New York, and have remained in America. His “ Petition of Delegates from the Working-Men’s Council, 1848,” is also in this country, as part of the Philadelphia gallery of Fer- dinand J. Dreer, and is perhaps his masterpiece. Meyerheim’s “ Monkeys’ Frolic” (4x2 feet) represents a banquet of apes, got up by one of their number, dressed in the traditional white apron and cap like a Doric capital ; the treatment of the subject by the Berlin artist recalling those scenes in which the French painter. Decamps, so racily satirized the doings of men in simian extravaganza. Meyerheim’s subjects from La Fontaine (6x8 feet each,) represent the “ Fox and Stork” at the reciprocal feasts which so severely tested their respective powers of assimilation. At the bird’s banquet, the puzzled malice of the fox, is expressed both in countenance and in anxious gyratory motion; his triumphant serenity at his own feast, where the bird hesitatingly draws up one claw while considering a bunch of dead game, is worthy of the Barmecide in the Arabian Nights. Eduard Griitzner, of Munich, is represented by a small picture, “ The Connoisseur,” showing a Dominican monk in a cellar, before a wine-bin, the key in his hand, the lantern hitched up on the wall, as he looks at the light through a glass of port. Griitzner is strong in his specialty of hitting off human weaknesses under the cloistered robe. Schenck, the shepherd of so many flocks and the teamster of so many velvet-nosed donkeys, sends from his Ecouen studio a characteristic subject, “ Sheep Caught in a Snow-Storm, at the Croix-mourante Pass, in Auvergne. The woolly pilgrims are shown in a highly-puzzled mood, with the track snowed away from beneath their feet in a blinding storm. When asked why he shows no specimens of Henner, Laurens, Baudry, Bastien-Lepage, this faithful collector replies, with a sigh of appetite and the expression of a gourmet balked, “ They are absolutely out of the market ; their better and worthier works are quite inaccessible.” CATALOGUE OF MR. J. WOLFE’S COLLECTION. Achenbach, a. — Sqtially Weather., off Scheveningen. “ “ After the Storm. Landscape. Achenbach, O. — Genazano, near Rome. Bakkerkorf, a. H. — Brie-d-Brac Shop. Becker, Carl. — Rugger the Banker Burning the Bonds of Charles V Berne-Bellecour, E. P. — On the Ramparts. « “ « The Infatuated Lover. Bertrand, James. — Virginia Dead. Bonnat, L. j. F. — Fellah Woman and Child. Bouguereau, W. a. — Satyr and Nymphs. Breton, Jules. — Normandy Girl at Fountain. « “ Brittany Penitent. Brion, Gustave. — Wedding Procession in Alsace. Cabanel, a. — Portrait of a Young Lady. « “ Birth of Venus. Chaplin, Ch. — The Dove. Water-color. “ “ Nymph at the Fountain. Chavet, V. — The Studio : time of Watteau. Clairin, G. — Sheik Entering his Harem. Comte, P. C. — The Toilet, Sixteenth Century. Corot, J. B. C, — Morning. Cot, P. a. — Spring. Daubigny, C. F. — Twilight on the Seine. DE Cock, C. — Shady Brook. DE CoNiNCK, P. — The Wedding Ring. “ “ The Lizard. DE Keyser, N. — The Invention of the Art of Design. “ “ Love's Young Dream. \tory. Delort, C.E. — Bric-d-Brac Shop: time of the Direc- DE Mesgrigny, F. — View on the Loire. Desgoffe, B. — Objets dl Art. Detaille, j. B. E. — Fight for the Standard. Devedeux, L. — Bashi-Bazouk and Circassian Slave. Dore, G. — Don Quixote Entertained by the Student. Fichel, E. B. — The Card Party. Fortuny, M. — The Veteran. Frere, E. — The Mid-day Meal. Gallait, L. — Huguenofs Family. Water-color. Ger6me, j. L. — Circassian Lady. Girard, Firmin. — Caught in the Thunder-Storm. Goupil, Jules. — The Lost Dauphin. Grutzner, Ed. — The Connoisseur. Guerra, G. — The Villa Borghese. Hasenclever, J. V.— The Artist’s Portrait, \_burg. Hennings, J. F. — The Park and Palace of Nymphen- Jacque, C. E. — Sheep and Lamb. Knaus, Ludwig. — Study from “ The Children’s Fite.” Kraus, F. — Peasant Girl of the Prussian Baltic Pro- Lambert, L. E. — The Scorched Cat. \yinces. Landelle, C. — Spiritual Consolation. Lefebvre, j. j. — Femme Couchie. Study. Leloir, L. — Beating the Retreat. « « Zephyr. Leon Y Escosura, D. Y. — Picture Gallery in Madrid: time of Philip IV. Madrazo, R. — Andalusian Peasant. Makart, Hans — Fellah Women at Well. Marchal, C. F. — Penelope. Merle, H. — Washerwoman of 6,tretat. Meyerheim, Paul.— 7%^ Monkeys’ Frolic. \ner. « The Fox Invites the Stork to Din- Meyerheim, Paul. — The Stork Invites the Fox to Meyer von Bremen, — The Gleaner. [Dinner. MunkAcsy, M. — The Widow’s Mite. Perrault, L. — The Roman Flower-Girl. Piloty, C. T. von. — Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn at Cardinal Wolsey’s. Preyer, j. W. — Dessert. Riedel, A. — Cupid and Psyche at the Fountain of Love. Riefstahl, W. L. F. — Capuchin Monks in a Tyrolese Monastery. Schenck, A. F. A. — Sheep in Snow-drift : Mountains of Auvergne, France. SchreyER, A. — Wallachian Team Entangled in the Marshes of the Danube. SoYER, Paul. — The Wine Press. “ “ The Wine Cup. Stevens, A. — Coquetterie. Van Marcke, Y.—Cow. From the Collection of the Count d’Aquila. “ » Bull. Vernet-Lecomte, Y.— Moorish Jewess : Costume de Fite. Vibert, G. Selling Consecrated Palms at Church Door, in Spain. Vollon, a. — Fruit. Wahlberg, a. — Near Stockholm. Worms, Jules. — The Serenade, Seville. «< « The Volunteer. ZamACOTs, D. E. — A Spanish Shepherd. Water-color. ZiEM, F. — Public Garden, Venice. BA.KBIJ3. PHlTiAORLPHTA. ■ 5 -K 1 ■ ' ■ ' .i ^ ...■■' ■ , ' i; JiABiaT.;, PH‘iT;A-uriirniA., ' ■ ‘ 1 .^ ■ _ ■; . I ' ' --:JI -.v ■■ ; ;:v;. ■.W-. ■ ' -JS.. . / . - r ' ■ ' ■ .>' : " I ■ - 'J "i/.' .-' r-. .lAt; ---.il*' . -■' J I THE THORNY PATH. ENGRAVED BY FAUST FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY THOMAS COUTURE. THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. rrangement of Mr. Gibson’s gallery of paintings is carried out on a plan unique, I believe, not only in Philadelphia, of which city his collection is the ornament, but anywhere in the country. Instead of a large hall, we have a series of little chapels. Each is lighted by a ceiling of glass, and the dimensions are in harmony with the pictures collected, which in hardly a single instance exceed a moderate easel size. Three or four little marble rooms from Pompeii seem to have floated over the sea, like Gulliver’s casket, and anchored upon a bed of roses ; for the con- servatory is adjacent, and the scent of warm hot-house earth steals in from its quadrangle to hint of the stability and reliance of terra firma. Excavations in such a precinct, one feels, should turn up a bronze household divinity, or a variegated mosaic. The sky shines through the ceilings of the small square chambers, as it does into the house of Sallust or the house of Pansa. The paintings that decorate the walls are many of them erotic and gay, avoiding dark subjects, as the majority do that have been revealed among the ashes of Vesuvius. To get the most striking effect, the exploration should be made when the full moon basks upon the transparent ceilings, and in solitude. In such a case the robe of a goddess fluttering on the wall or the gray outline of a statue takes one back to South Italy readily, and clearly pertains to some villa at Baiai, or Parthenope, or Capri, or Herculaneum. If there were windows in the walls — but there are none — fancy would be sure to sketch us, under the moon, the Naples Bay and the filmy cap and plume of Vesuvius. Through a low doorway, however, to speak of earth and anchor us to realities, come the flower-scents, stooping as they enter, and leaving their silken homes to accost the paintings and the busts. There is a per- spective of rose-banks, an environment of color in forms of art, a cold, pale, inlaid floor. Enormous sea-shells swing in the moist conservatory atmosphere, holding an air-plant or a 6S 66 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. flowering creeper that fills their labyrinths with perfume instead of murmur. Our business is, however, with the more rigid daylight view. Mr. Gibson is a collector who holds clearly in his mind the determination never to have more than a hundred pictures. The purchase of a new one means the condemnation of an elder one. The gallery grows in refining, not in increase. This anchorite vow is hard to keep, however, and this Sultan some- times accjuires a new love without finding the heart to discard an old. Thomas Couture, the French painter of the “ Decadence Romaine,” who died March 31, 1879, at the age of sixty-four, is revealed in two pictures. “Le Triomphe d’une Femme Equivoque,” or “The Thorny Path,” is a subject completed in 1873, and measuring 6 by 4 feet. This important picture shows Couture in his self-imposed role of teacher of humanity. An allegory of the old-fashioned kind is carried out with permitted anachronisms of the most daring boldness. A classical-looking damsel, whose tunic falls carelessly from the waist, furiously drives a modern “Stanhope;” equally modern is the horrible, mob-capped old mother, of the mere d' actrice type, who crouches behind her in the carriage, from whose pocket a huge black bottle emerges, and whose lean hands are clutched over each other with an insatiable lust of gold and booty. Meanwhile the lovely mischief, half standing, half leaning against the box, cranes her slim neck and extends her insolent whip towards a team of helpless men who draw the CREPUSCULE. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY HAMON. vehicle. There are ruts in the slightly descending road — other convoys have passed that way before; there are burly thistles in the path, and the feet of the masculine victims are lacerated in the thorny highway. The cortege, all equally well broken in, consist of men chosen from various types and various epochs. Allegory is not afraid to mingle the armor of the medieval landsnecht with the nudity of the antique Silenus: the satyr-like visage of the minister of Bacchus leads the procession, as on a Bacchic vase ; his cynical exposure reveals his figure bloated by excess, his flesh grown flabby with indulgence, his swollen feet and Vitellius-like cheeks, which are shaded by his ample vine-wreath; with his huge and relaxed limbs, he pulls first in the disgraceful team. He looks back, not only with satire but with envy, at the pretty boy who follows next behind, the ideal of a young mediseval trouba- dour, with his eyes fixed dreamily on the horizon, and his hands clasped on his heart, not feeling yet the load he draws. Next behind follows the young student, in laurel-wreathed felt and modern booted vacation-dress: he jots down a copy of verses as he goes, and the ineffable aureole of youth plays radiantly about his figure, attracting sympathy for his captivity and almost condoning his shame. Last comes the soldier, dragging with his scarred veteran limbs, galled in many battles, and now cramped in the disgraceful harness; of mature age, with an intellectual bald head, a vivid look of self-reproach and introversion in his bent visage, the laurels withering around his honorable armor, as he joins, with full consciousness and bitter sense of vanquishment, in the mad captivity to woman. As these typical figures strain under the whip-lash, the serene and implacable tyranny of Beauty rises behind them, fair with egotism and self-pampering, her bare arms and bosom rigid with cruelty, her white feet lying like flowers on silken cushions ; and, lastly, as if the essential and intrinsic badness of the heartless woman were not expressed plainly enough, there emerges, out of the dark behind her, her own completed image in the mirror of time, the model of what she will become, the form of femininity reduced to simple appetite and desire, the lust of gold overcoming all other, the hands turning to grasping claws, the eyes furtively watching for pillage, the life-thirst expressed in the gaping bottle that thrusts itself from the ever-hungry pocket. What surprises the spectator at first is the audacious way in which the moralist-painter has confused his metaphors; there are no traces by which to draw his wheels, either literally or figuratively. A classically I dressed beauty, whose mother is a modern market-woman, is i pulled in a fashionable “T-cart” by a number of men who have I existed at epochs hundreds of years apart, and they pull by the lines alone, neither thills nor traces being apparent about the carriage. Perhaps it is these confusions and contradictions that the terminal bust of Couture himself, set on a marble pillar and signed T. C., is laughing at so sarcastically. In regard to technical execution, it must be said that this picture is inferior in color and quality to the generality of Couture’s works. There are crude yellows, reds and blues, such as are seldom seen in his schemes, and the lovely gray on flesh and stone, in which he sometimes approaches the gray of Velasquez, is seen but in isolated patches. It must be said of Couture that he has the courage and individuality of the untraveled artist ; familiar with little but the Louvre, his i ■|. i '# . ■ 'fi- / i - '.t -c- I 1 an' kagaM^»fe>-‘'^"‘7i^^ (n, MasicCKVi:|t;^^9l^ .vtrti’r- ajw ;'4’i« C-vi rs;-J by ,. ;ii', ■?*^o iy** ‘‘ *' ' '^' ■''- ;t. /. . irt i«-,>ti-..rr t.'eir;. ■i 1 ^ ■* i: .v;'A 0 V, arid wilfully \rrf.i-;Aaj; !;t d atiatoifiKlji.! .'■ 'A '5i<T‘ ., ■» ''wy t‘> a'i'uit a‘i! A^odik-i-s ii . ■: 1 3 k!ij« til ’ -/V ; . ,' :.^tM>i> alMjut her. She iie.s arcri-.-.-i .ia ,| •Ml the* W4Vti frr>ija wi.kts "bi- 5-Vj«*t :|^ft^.h;r wholy !■. .i-;l-.>SS oik!)' k»iStin,A.<,.«n it . n*!f yittbnK Ihg eaoK 'j-;. i ; oiv; ' r.or,s.;;nstcni iiftlc rd*!''? ujr J'tvv;,'.-.t Way — . '' ^ a bl6wa rosc'jjcfai, *^'1^ Isfc -cfl, inaylk Sh:; s '. !'s .-c'iJt;.J upon \ i i»'.r -warm hair, which Hoii.- , i!>.> Cv-'iur of honey, ..I'ln . tlie : K'-t-o ?r. nLfv!ptcd tbs'it'Mj^'ct in | Medncrranean t5ie loira '-cream* a;j, to pu’iow her head. , ■ i<: «'h05C type. Tt'4fBbIes j into 'impromptu tuft;- ami, r«sy.<.; -viai ,[0ffl^''J^o<Yi' 'u«tkr one ■ ■ •■■•'hich Cd«tur^,.>iiay_ I eibow.' five JdUe. Desircsr'bkw'iag-'ica^it^ ^ 'catcbiny each :iA.ysi., " ■ *^ ; other's haai^ link and' dt«si4vt' an»»' arnong the ajvWSn . ’.ift';o: i.:;i:^j an-.; light cloudfei 'of the ,sky~thtAfel:r c:.;' , .:<i;iS',s^Crc, ;yi thi- a.-s ark 1, -ni Asr-rd'.; ' dr d . \i-rriifdn, an island pnrflc/ winch ^boufi;- oe Cylhm; out wii! ■’ o isiS ;i! c Kc .y* 4 ,■ ; .■.■ •; ■;■, ISu;' .''Jif' ■!{.' '■ • ' 'i-yabd <■■., lives i’ r . =■ ' ' " . . V.: ■ 1, ' ‘ c . • ' ipsvssicm^ ■• ■ ’ J'- '. f ' ■''■''*1 • -' ' “ \'.;nas;’rpfti»t >e Aaiv..u«d^"'- 'c a ■ ke. ■ ■ '■ ;d I!' ■ •'C . . «4-, d ■ vt- 'c \s , ■'.' •!■ 'i d'. ■: t! •.' t ■',• usd his *' Venns" for .. . '•"d; -x.v ■ ■■’■ :i that c.'.ut might n^er hope . ; .-• . -'Xin the lacfc. of thosa who would , ! - rre: ...V, pi ;sc;p!esa>f Gn*ek religions art. ■■■>. S,c;,-. IV :C';,:kiivlossly g.iy; it throws a iiAht .1.1 ilKi'fiacc, ar. I s^ras to be s'.vt;-r m .shades. cXJnashamed, . , .-. ;ii'\,.!s ,■ : ‘n a>.-. .-V ’M.rr-'iiv.'spfierc of influence,- conirc^if. . 1 • ’ ;■•' ■ ' ' k painthig • ■':■' -i -d s-s room , of O' .'.f vi iidh drai fig . I ; ' .v> ‘ ■•> "■•' i . .; d '■; i -d :Uy w^il. re.s - *I# v Vc !V.» ibn* iV i';' s fti* (k. v.r.ss ■ T;rs-..:ciy tr • 'rt mo.csrvl' y great, .si, ...li-t: Ch'._ '.s-nce »’;f ,« ■■''• ‘hi. itinnly ... ..mt'- K^y *»' ,Uilo. Granting th<rt .-I? ..-W. ' :;.i- —an -artist who Ji^ _a'., .. of his VU", scents i.s .-rii r,V,>i>c ' '.d': aggftgo l.iy toy passing ; fK'/Gio’Why 'ot' !'i ; :■ i iuKt to go off with s^. f rttoncy. \ ' i ' , ■ , . 'i'i I ..■iS { \ >nd Capri agtip’ i'r,-.- iiiyita of Capri gleaic c en dfjJ^k/; .,-', t( ■. I n.; . -.'.ri'cy by.thc {jaintc; ‘'OS .i;-,- ny-Aig, fisthoms I'c ivc the • ‘..oca 'Out iioriJKjfltdUy hy the s-ti-e,ss ;>f .. . . , .; ibc.r wes, fixed like thixse of ..-'-■airrtrhbni'i.''' . hcif M.ifi. U.-c captain of their -draam? It rt' W>n'- ■: ,in r>;>n tuuj'.-i. -I'-dio 1^ 'ltKtf^ .t1|g^ .k'rs, font on the backof each, aad there Hx ■^sh t ■ \ '4 THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 67 works will never be put to shame by being found to contain borrowings from an inaccessible crypt of the Madrid museum, a chapel of Masaccio’s at Florence, or the like. His characters are discovered by himself, his expressive vigor is his alone. No type of woman better than Couture’s has been created by a modern Frenchman. Her coldness, her distinction, her faultless grace and impregnable cruelty, her air of accepting all and giving nothing, are worthy of Balzac, in another vein. The only bit of pasticcio which I am tempted to suspect in this picture is the fat Silenus in front, whose type resembles that of Ribera’s Silenus at Naples, which Couture may possibly have seen in photograph. Couture traveled hardly at all, was almost unlettered, and was a genius. Such exemplars as are contained in Paris he is conversant with, but he is no haunter of picture-galleries, no sketcher in scattered lands: he is a discoverer whom our period of pedantry and communication of ideas scarcely touches. The more impressional spectator is apt to march pretty directly up to the “ Venus,” painted by Cabanel, whose replica we too hastily noticed in speeding through, as best we might, the ponderous catalogue of Mr. Wolfe’s collection. Cabanel invented his “Venus” in 1863, and the present form of the conception became the property of Mr. Gibson in 1870. The painting occupies a little bower of drapery, in the innermost room of all, the folds of which drapery flow away from her figure in every direction — altogether centrifugally, and with a slight air of sarcasm. The “Venus” is surely very delicate and seductive, with a rather uncelestial beauty; the painter has created her with that absence of soul which evades responsibility. The figure is of the family of the Medici Venus, not that of the Venus of Milo. Granting that it is the divinity of a naturally trivial man — an artist who has never yet invented a great situation on any of his canvases and a draughtsman who is affectedly and wilfully wanting in anatomical expression — it is easy to admit that the goddess has a kind of foolish, fond perfection about her. She lies arched on the wave from which she is just born, her whole boneless body twisting on it and her limbs embracing each other ; one nonsensical little great-toe of her curls up the reverse way — a blown rose-petal, to be kissed, maybe. She is bedded upon her warm hair, which floats, the color of honey, on the Mediterranean blue ; the foam creams up, to pillow her head, into impromptu tufts and roses; she peeps from under one elbow; five little Desires, blowing conchs or catching each other’s hands, link and dissolve and form again among the light clouds of the sky — the foam of the atmosphere; on the horizon, an island profile, which should be Cythera, but will be Capri. All this, of course, is no way to represent the divine principle of Love, but the court-painter created his “Venus” for a corrupt Emperor, as a mischief that man might never hope to mend, and that would laugh in the face of those who would try it by the great grave principles of Greek religious art. In tone the canvas is shadowlessly gay; it throws a light of airy French flattery around the place, and seems to be modeled in excesses of brightness rather than in shades. Unashamed, alluring, and contented in a very narrow sphere of influence, this “Venus” seems born to be called a baggage by any passing Sir Roger de Coverley of the Saxon race, and to go off with a piece of money. Capri, and Capri again! The lights of Capri gleam from the distance of this pretty little fancy by the painter Hamon, the “ Crepuscule.” Two girls are flying, fathoms above the sea, their drapery stretched out horizontally by the stress of their motion, and their eyes fixed like those of somnambules. Who is their Mab, the captain of their dream? It is none other than Dan Cupid, who has leaped right upon their shoulders, a foot on the back of each, and stands there fixed. ARABS FIGHTING IN RETREAT. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY S. J. FERRIS, PROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. SCHREYER. 68 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. lashing them inexorably with the cord of his bow. The girls drive wildly forward, ready to dash on the rocks of Capri, still moist with wine spilt in the orgies of Tiberius. Granting to Hamon the faculty of devising these epigrams very neatly, and of knowing just enough of the human figure to draw his pulpy puppets without absolute disgrace, we confess to a wish that he should have generally confined his work to those fans which he decorated so well ; what would seem charming on a semicircle of vellum in a lady’s fingers seems to empty itself into nonsense when heavily framed and hung among the works of artists whose pencils are of the male sex. A good, almost a flattering example of Kaulbach permits us to set this world-wide reputation in vivid contrast with similar renowns of French extraction. Kaulbach’s subject here is “ Mother-Love,” and is from the same original sketch as the larger canvas similarly named in Mr. Probasco’s collection at Cincinnati. The theme is an allegorical female figure nursing four children, in the style of Del Sarto’s celebrated “ Charity” in the Louvre. Catalogued as “ Maternal Affection” in the Derby sale, and so named in the German sources of information, the treatment would indicate that the personage was mother of triplets at least, for the younger children seem to be of about the same age. The specimen of Vibert is at the high-water-mark of his bright and glancing talent. It is “The Roll-Call after the Pillage.” The dragoons of Villars have sacked some fat and opulent place, Friedlingen or Stolberg, and, laden down with booty, swaggering, tipsy, holding each other up, the men-at- arms form a zigzag line, in front of their captain; one, with liquor in each hand, staggers out of the Golden Lion Inn, whose tap-boy lies on the ground, dead or stunned. In the line drawn up for review, the foremost figure is a graceless comely sort of Don Ce.sar de Bazan, who has taken a prisoner the captive being a magnificent white goose, for whom the lad’s sword-belt is the gallows. As a painting of humors, an imprint of the superficies of a situation, the thing is capital; and in the graver qualities of art, soberness of color, compo- sition and quality, it recalls the better day of Vibert, when he had the ambition to be a painter, rather than his present epoch, when a whole laboratory of students elaborate the hard and glittering pictures which he is content to decorate with his signature “for the American Market.” SCENE IN CONSTANTINOPLE. FAC-SIMILE OF A DESIGN BY S. J. FERRIS, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. PASINI. { CAtLlStO THK ROLl. AFTER FILLAOK. ■ t . H'<^«ttk« - •■ M i liftot I*#' • .?!►«,»»*- » * 1' * V. ' •■■.!;- ■'■ ’f «■ ■< vi(k !’'••• I li-! ' •*>".• ■• Of M» -if VA :• < . Aimd^ ' * ‘v<i • ;■.• -4.^ ■•■ -V. . • f> 4^' «. /I ‘■"■‘S' «< t', . ■ ^ -4* V.- w» * ■''rif'9' ' »Wi|f :• j* 4 i , * V'‘«t«»j if-.- ■>!(«•• • y- :Wxi'*.6v ■'= »■ . v -f niiww • ', V |P**y ^ ■ ‘^- •> ^,•«A4^i ■' •*"* ■ •i f " ’ ■+ -"*•* " V .. . •-•’<.. -*'" ■ -.I t ( MMMNr i* r’’^ •» A' ^ —<^:'*' f « -CA **4 -r, i^kr^ »■!••. ■«♦■■■«»» <■ - . . -*T, K-*-*fc4 l»l»..-f ll V»»« <M|nr «IXfl»|l>l<tT<yA ‘ort ^ tm»ia»i*i <1* ««■«■> «■ < AC • • A • '• t i s s THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 69 The statue-group, in bronze, whose representation is inlaid like an initial at the top of the first column in this article, is “The Rape of the Sabines,” by Louis Gregoire. M. Gregoire is a living French sculptor, born in Paris, and educated in the atelier of Jean Jules Salmson. In the present work he does not affect classical simplicity, but emulates the decorative brilliancy and lively flutter of the renaissance. The soldier’s armor, with its head of Romulus’ wolf on the helmet, is of a richness far too advanced for the period, but the artist cares nothing about that; what he is thinking of is to make an orna- mental parlor bronze. This group was executed in 1873. Adolphe Schreyer, the admirable painter from Frankfort on the Main, resident in Paris, is revealed in a fair example. “Arabs Fighting in Retreat.” A group of Kabyle sheiks and officers, seen from the rear, with a languid Eastern light falling on their flying haiks and bournouses, are desperately shooting and darting their spears in Parthian fashion as they recede from the eye. The fluttering figures, and the silken-coated steeds they ride, are blotted together in a beautiful suffusion, partly of dust and partly of evening vapor, the poetic mirage-atmosphere of hot climates. This tender, sultry softness which overcomes the landscape is what gives especial distinction to Mr. Gibson’s specimen of Schreyer. The painter fastens, with equal poetic appreciation, on the sunny glow of tropical climates, basking voluptuously on romantic Arabs and ideal steeds, or on the snow-flaws of the steppes and the shaggy gipsies and horses they envelop. In this picture our artist breaks the haze with a vigorous figure of a Kabyle on a black horse, who has tied the riderless gray of some murdered comrade to his own steed ; thus embarrassed, he vanishes pell-mell into a cloud of white bournouses that swarm up a low, scrubby hillside, turning for a vindictive shot as he gallops away. Of late years Schreyer is losing his care and distinctness of drawing, and tending more and more to make mere glancing thistle-down of the dissolving hide of his animals. In an example like the present, though, this soft confusion of glossy form is a grace, for it adds to the sense of motion. Another glimpse of the Orient, showing a second order of merit, is seen in the “ Constantinople Market,” by Alberto Pasini, born near Parma, and now living at Paris. I find nobody who can group a confused mass of horses under a tropical light quite so ably as Pasini; the horses are well- rounded, the masses into which they collect are well-rounded too. Titian said that a painter’s compositions should be studied from a bunch of grapes, and Pasini’s miniature equestrians show just such a roundedness of masses made up of indi- viduals themselves separately embossed ; Meissonier is apt to come a little short of this perfection, as in his diagram-like “1807.” In the Constantinople scene Pasini’s horses are drawn up into a throng on one side, accurate as little statuettes of bronze, salient and exacting as if each claimed his proper square inch of canvas to stand on. An arched portico fills the background, rising high in air with its turnip-shaped arcades; and the chaffering crowd, in all the colors of Har- lequin, gather around the squatting fruit-sellers, whose melons roll over the foreground like pebbles at the foot of a cataract. The example of Meissonier is small but admirable. It is called “A Cavalier Awaiting an Audience.” Some fast-riding post of Turenne or the Grand Conde, come with news to the king of the victory of Fribourg or the burning of Heidelberg, warms himself at the ante-chamber fire as he waits the royal pleasure. One spurred and booted foot he lifts on the hob. RIDING HOME. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY C. TROYON. 70 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. de Hoogh. The ambition to paint open-air effects is what is killing Meissonier’s reputation: indisputable in chamber-sub- jects, he is thrown flat by landscape. The present picture is worthy of his best moments, deep yet not dull, and rich with- out a particle of vulgar glitter. Constant Troyon, whose animal subjects nearly always have the incommunicable light and air of genius, is seen in a capital “ Landscape with Cattle.” A black-faced steer, relieved against a white-faced steer, is seen standing in the foreground, in a shallow stream, which a shepherdess, riding on a donkey, is about to ford, as she gathers her sheep for the evening fold. This master, who took up animal painting comparatively late in his career, because his landscapes were not successful to his wish, remained a landscape-painter to the close, valuing his animals chiefly for their relief and contrast — incidents in his paradise, not sharers of his love. His black ox throws back his distance; his red cow contradicts his meadow; such are their functions ; they are not studied as individuals, with the Stewart gallery. A dark cow has lifted her head towards the herd, shaking her ear, whose shadow plays over her neck of silk : she stands in the shallow water of a river, brimmed into peace and silence by high tide, against a background of low hill-forms. A red and white cow is drinking alongside, and stands out sculpturally in the frank, clear afternoon light, just yellowing enough to tarnish faintly the silver patches of her hide. It is a piece of carving in oils, modeled with the precision and solidity of the golden Hathor of an Egyptian temple. Yet there is no composition in the picture, and its perfections drift together fortuitously and helplessly, wanting the graceful art to collect them into a lovely landscape compo- sition, so easily exerted by Troyon, and even by Troyon s pupil. Van Marcke. A painting of “ Highland Sheep,” by Rosa Bonheur, shows a long-haired flock, in imminent need of shearing ; her small picture has the blotted manner of the English water-color school, with the English occasional dab of hard, uncom- while his hand leans on the sculptured hood of the chimney- piece, and the draggled feathers nodding from his broad and weather-beaten hat tell of travel and haste. This open-air figure, brought with all its breath of out-of-doors into the glow and luxury of in-door shelter, almost unites the sentiment of landscape-painting with that of interior-painting. The subject is of the kind which made Meissonier’s reputation; an internal effect, compassable with studio light and studio accessories, and painted with a quietude of perfect skill that is to be the despair of all future artists and the criterion of talent even in the company of old Dutchmen like Van der Meer and Pieter love of the true animalist. The present specimen is good enough to show Troyon as one of the great landscape-painters, and if there are shortcomings in the treatment of the figures, these shortcomings seem like an intentional subordination of the animals to the lovely scope and breadth of scenery they people. But Auguste Bonheur’s cattle, how individual, how per- sonal they are ! Perfect in structure, with envelopes of living, supple hide, they breathe, they stand weightily upon the can- vas. The “ Cattle” in this collection is a picture as excellent technically as the same painter’s “Fontainebleau” in the A. T. DANCING THE JALEO, IN THE PALACE OF PILATE, SEVILLE. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FKOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY R. MADKAZO. CUIRASSIERS, VILLAGE OF MORSBRONN, AUGUST 6, 1870. THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. promising white. Schenck, of Ecouen, in "The Last Hour,” has a conspicuous composition of life-size sheep, huddled together in the butcher’s shambles, and driven almost frantic by the red floor and smell of blood. This premonition of doom is well known to those who have watched the killing of sheep, and the terror and despair of these soft, helpless criminals, expressed with very practical realism, has made a tragic oppor- tunity for the , painter of which he has availed himself more strikingly than gracefully. GIBSON, towards the close of Fortuny’s life, was able to secure, through the in- termediary of his friend, Mr. W. H. Stewart, of Philadelphia and Paris, (Fortuny’s great patron) a choice example of the phenomenal Spanish paint- er. “The Old Hotel de Ville in Grenada” (19 x 14 inches) is painted on a panel, and was completed in 1873. He writes from Rome, in December, 1872, to his kind friend Stewart, INITIAL FROM A DESIGN BY M. ARcos. " I am finisliing tho picture for Mr. Gibson, and I have not begun anything new, for I wish to be done with the things I have brought from Spain, in order to return afterwards to my native country again.” This refers to Spanish subjects, sketched on the spot, for completion in Rome, of which this picture was one, and which must be all turned off the easel in the Roman studio before the artist would feel free to go on another Spanish foray. Again Fortuny writes from Rome to his “dear Guglielmo,” June, 1873, “A thousand thanks for the advice you give me about my money. As for the forty thousand francs for Mr. Gibson’s picture, if you cannot take care of it you can dispose of it to be drawn on sight in any banking house you please.” Fortuny’s biographer, the Baron Davilliers, remarks here, “ The picture in question in this letter, and which belongs to Mr. Gibson, represents the Ayuntamiento Viejo, or ancient City Hall of Grenada, a very picturesque old edifice, with balconies covered with flowers and overrun by luxuriant foliage ; it is a marvel of color.” It is in compo- sitions like this, where Fortuny represents an open-air scene, and, according to his own expression, “ fences with the sunshine without parrying a single ray,” that his marvelous talent particularly asserts itself. We marvel at the miracle, at the expressive eloquence with which he can make paint talk daylight. This was never done by any preceding school of art, and constitutes, in Fortuny’s persdn, the contribution made to art-experiment by the nineteenth century. The painting shows the court-yard of the old Moorish building, degraded to its present usage as a fish-mart. The crumbling tiled roofs print themselves against the sky, and eat into the plastered walls with their toothed shadows. The balconies 71 are so many flower-gardens, — and when has flower-painting, done on this miniature scale, given so truly the mingling jewelry of tropical blossoms, the stiff bristling of thorny plants, the velvet dryness of sunny leaves? All over the picture a .sen.se of torrid heat sucks up every suggestion of moisture. The sky is a deep basin of devouring blue fire, into which the red chimney-tops and the serrated ridges of the roofs are imbedded in the sharpest, distinctest mosaic. The raw, unmitigated delivery of color which belongs to vapor- less noonday is fearlessly copied, and turned to a novel, spicy harmony ; there are placards posted on the wall, of liveliest vermilion, chrome and blue. In the middle distance a knot of gaily-dressed children play and scramble, and their little features, sharpened by the sun, are got in place with the dis- tinctness and reality of a photograph. A group set against the wall to the right, under the protection of a great umbrella, has the real daylight air of living people in the arid light of Spain, and tells besides a pretty tale of maternal happiness. Some miniature figures to the left, dressed in full Spanish varie- gation, form a series that is granulated at first sight like a procession of ants, but yields all the satisfaction of human CAVALIER WAITING AN AUDIENCE. .FAC -SIMILE OF A SKETCH FKOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. L. E. MEISSONIEK. interest when we see how every individual is comprehended 72 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. and studied — we seem to be looking into a world of novel scale with the aid of a microscope, and every human figure, every patch of color on a dress, is influenced by the same light which fills with purple tones the grayish shadows woven beneath the plastered eaves. Nobody perceived these relations of values, it is true, till the photograph was invented, and it may be said that the Spanish school ought to thank their true master, the camera. But it is a great deal to have carried out the gray neutral hints of the photograph in schemes of color, and, even with such an aid, Fortuny proves himself a giant in conveying with the mere resources of shaded paints, seen always in a tempered illumination, the full blaze of torrid sunshine. The Dutch did wonders in placing their little animated groups in the full sensation of the open air ; but they only attempted the soft, hazy light of a humid climate. Fortuny’s conquest is the fiery ocean of dry southern light, absolutely sealed from Art before he came. Of all the subjects in this line of triumph, no picture left by the Spanish painter is more superb than the present example. Its safety has been in great danger, however, its commanding excellence having made it the object of pro- fessional cupidity. Some artist, more able to appreciate its beauty than the beauty of honesty, almost succeeded in stealing it by means of the substitution of a counterfeit copy, and Mr. Gibson’s picture is the specimen known in art annals as the stolen Fortuny. The incident happened in 1877. The owner had contributed it to the Loan Exhibition at the Philadelphia Academy, and allowed it to remain through the regular Spring exhibition at the gallery; when this closed, on the .second day of June, Mr. Gibson’s loans were sent back to his home, and the pictures not examined until he returned to the house in the Autumn. Something peculiar in the aspect of his Fortuny then struck the anxious connoisseur; the magic charm of the picture seemed to have vanished from off the face of the panel, and the disconcerted owner ruefully said to himself that if his costly purchase were no better a thing than now appeared before his disenchanted eyes, he might as well have contented himself with some inferior master. So imposing, however, is the evidence of accessories, that the apparent identity of the stuff of the panel almost convinced him that he was mis- taken ; the back revealed, in fact, the most complete .fac-simile imaginable of the original wood, with the “ cradles” or strength- ening bars strictly imitated from those prepared by Goupils. On the face, too, the signature of Fortuny, and the general aspect of the picture, were close enough to pass muster with a hasty observer; it only seemed as if some fatal deterioration had come over the scene, and left everything commonplace where everything had been miraculous before. A photograph taken from the authentic painting was now laid by the panel, and compared inch by inch; then it was found that there was a discrepancy between the two, in the number of tiles represented in the principal roof The evidence of experts was taken, and it soon became patent that a very clever forgery had been committed, and the counterfeit left in place to console the possessor for the absence of the genuine. On collecting the evidence of the history of the past months, it seemed probable that some unscrupulous art-student or copyist of the Academy had substituted his imitation, in the face of the danger attending the theft of so conspicuous a masterpiece; and, finally, the curator of the institution, being detailed to hunt for it, returned from a long search with the legitimate picture, which he re- ported having found in the hands of a wandering artist at Niagara Falls. The affair has never been probed further, the owner being averse to any greater publicity, and content with regaining his favorite. THE SUMMER STROLL. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY G. BOLUINI Modern Spanish life and character, depicted by those I who can best interpret them, are found in the dancing-scenes of Madrazo and Villegas. How infinitely superior are these studies, redolent of the soil and collected by natives who smack their lips over them, to the far-fetched traveler’ s-reports I of the Englishmen, Phillips and Lewis, or to those of Giraud I in the Luxembourg ! By the modern Spaniards we have the ^ true flavor and wine of life as it mantles in the hot-blooded I bull-fighters of Seville and the gipsies who dance for their j delight when the toils of the arena are over. In the Jaleo- i Dance in the House of Pilate, Seville,” we see the dark-hued I gipsy-girl courageously mounted on the table, and writhing in the convulsions of the dance, which twists her gay robes I i ' ■ ii i : Hi ,j : j : i-; i : ih ill FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY MICHAEL MUNKACSY, IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON, PHILADELPHIA. 1 THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 73 about her like the spirals of a cornucopia. Her female com- panion watches her distantly and like a critic from a seat under the banana-trees of the court, while behind her the gay toreros pick the guitar or stretch over several chairs, with the marsille or embroidered jacket flung over one shoulder. In the small picture of Villegas, called “ Spanish Recreations,” we are treated to a not dissimilar comedy, where a stalwart bull-fighter Paris Salon for years, with all the air of a disciple by convince- ment of the most advanced doctrines of the “ Spanish-Roman” school, but it is his distinction never to have received a French decoration. The clique of Fortuny and his brothers-in-law and his intimates seems to have absorbed the whole medal- giving power of the Salon jury, and when Boldini comes forward with precisely similar merits the door of preferment THE DRUMMER-BOY. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. DE NEUVILLB. of gipsy descent, with one of those dark, monkey-like faces so common at Seville, and broad, heavy hat, watches from his perch on a table, while a gipsy in multiplied flounces extends her arms towards him in an amatory dance, and a doorway behind is filled with three attentive faces and an equally atten- tive and accompanying guitar. An item in the natural history of the manola or Spanish dancer, as analyzed by these careful observers, is that her gay clothes are always huddled, and never smoothly worn; her skirt of thin brittle silk, of blushing pink, is crumpled like the leaf of a poppy, and it never seems to belong to her, but to have been cast over her figure at hazard out of some repertory of cheap professional costumes. Giovanni Boldini, of Ferrara, has been exhibiting in the is crashed in his face. “The Summer Stroll,” in this collection, shows what he can do. The problem in his picture was to set a bright costume and an illuminated face, without any relief of values, right against a sunny sky, with a boldness as different as possible from the tricks of conventional portrait- painters, who always tone down their skies by many degrees behind a head, or contrast the latter with an improvised thunder-cloud. In this bright little gem of painting Boldini chooses to tell the truth about nature, and makes his heavens and his figure of the same value. The result is luminous and triumphant. The type, too, in the old-fashioned costume Boldini generally affects, is as quaint as it is appetizing; the sweet forms and graces of youth are rigged out in the clothes 74 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. we find in our grandmothers’ trunks. Here is a pretty lady mincing along through the tall grain, swinging her large open canopy-topped parasol, gloved up to the elbow, short-waisted almost up to the throat, the chin protected by a broad frill, and the completed costume crowned with a prodigious fountain of feathers, which plays madly into the sky from the very apex of the cap. It is one of Carle Vernet’s caricatures made lovable, human, sympathetic. The “ cry of the earth” that poets rave over in the works of Millet, is found, too, in the large and grand picture by Jules Breton, “The Potato-Gatherers.” Here is the solid, real, positive grit and fracture of the germinating clod. The rustic Atlas, able to carry her sheaves with the grace of a caryatid; and they seem as they linger or stretch their large muscles to stand upon the brick-fields of their Babylon, faintly conscious of their exile, and longing for some happier heritage to which in right of their sex they should return. The French farm, with its simplicity, patient cultivation, humble ambition and moral purity, is full of the atmosphere of the pastoral, and there are interpreters, like Breton and Millet, who know it. Strange that this sweetest of motivi has not got into French literature ; but French art is much more radical and penetrating, much less a thing of sophistication and of cities, than PTench letters. By this poet of the fields, then, Mr. Gibson possesses painter of Courrieres is one who comprehends the immense poetry, and who has been shadowed often with the immense dumb sorrow, of the fields. He enunciates this poetry as little as possible in the old French style of imaginary pastorals, garlands, and shepherds’ pipes ; but he sees in the gayest life of clowns the lament of their narrowed opportunities, and is penetrated with pity even during their awkward snatches of hard-won ease and festival. In his Luxembourg picture, as the rustic pageant of the Host winds through the yellow wheat- fields, this Breton, with the sympathy of a pious soul, is heart- struck by the tender trust of the hard-fisted spectators, who lift up their bent backs to view the solemnity, and absorb into their stony minds an instant’s share of the ideal. Why should immortal intelligences be cast into such circumstances ? he asks and makes us ask. In the presence of such captive natures we seem like thieves, with our apparatus of libraries, education, music, art and travel. In another picture, his peasant-women repose after a day’s harvesting, each a female the first important picture he ever painted of nearly life scale, — to be followed by the various knitting shepherdesses of the natural size, who seem rather overgrown and motiveless in the cabinets where subsequent collectors have imprisoned them. Mr. Gibson’s specimen is the best of its style and kind in America or anywhere. In plain prose, two farm-women are gathering potatoes at dusk. In poetry and truth, a pair of Titanesses, who have battled with the earth, are stripping the dark Amazon of her meagre trophy. They stand into the sky like Druid towers, and around them stretch the immeasurable Landes ; their thick frocks fall upon them like the hammered drapery of iron statues; their muscular faces are composed by the reiterated monotony of their toil into proud granite masks; and the huge arms, under their thickened, leathery skin, are the arms of the gladiator. What but the magic of genius could transform subjects so obstinately simple into figures of art, and make you feel the art beyond the subject? But such is the creator’s sorrowful strength, that the picture \ I 1 I •V FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY JOSEPH CHELMONSKI, IN THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON, PHILADELPHIA. THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 75 seems like a Mymn to Labor, with the burden devil-changed ! into a curse. The canvas aches with a waste of power. As we consider it, we remember how Diirer has drawn a figure that still puzzles the meditative spectator, — a woman brooding amid all the appliances of art and information, sullen in the | centre-place of improvement, and mocked by a Bat, that flies \ away into the sunrise with “ melancholy” written on its wings. | Our later poet paints his women in their shipwreck of oppor- i tunity, bereft of everything that nurses womanhood into grace; i and, weaving its circles in their solitary night, we seem to see their familiar, and the word upon its wings is “melancholy” too. Detaille’s graphic and important picture, from the Salon of 1874 {6}^ y. 4.% feet) represents the “The Charge of the Ninth Regiment of Cuirassiers in the Village of Morsbrunn, on the day of the Battle of Reichschoffen, August 6th, 1870.” The young artist has himself described the incident of his picture, in a letter communicated to Mr. Gibson, with a circum- stantiality which leaves nothing to be desired, and proves how competent he is to be enrolled among the historians of a war which he followed in person to its close. “ It was at the time when the extreme right of the French army,” remarks M. Detaille, “ commanded by General of Division, De Lastigne, began to be outflanked by the Germans, that the successive ! charges of the regiments of Cuirassiers took place ; first, that of the Michel Brigade, in the village of Morsbrunn, then, that of the Bonnemains Division, in the ravine of Elsasshausen. The little village of Morsbrunn was situated at the right wing of the French army; the Michel Brigade, composed of the : LA FEE AUX JOUJOUX. KAC-SIMILE OP A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY N. DIAZ DE LA VENA. eighth and ninth regiments of Cuirassiers, was ranged a little behind. About one o’clock this brigade received the order to REVELATION. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY E. ZAMACOIS attack the left wing of the Germans, which was beginning to outflank the French right wing and had already occupied Morsbrunn. The Prussian infantry barricaded the northern extremity of the village with carts belonging to the peasants, and left open the approach placed on the side towards the French ; then, ambushed in the houses and in the vineyards surrounding the village, they awaited the charge of the Ninth Regiment, which came up at the utmost speed, expecting to meet the enemy on the other side of Morsbrunn. This is the moment of the engagement represented in the picture. The regiment has just dashed upon the impromptu obstruction, of which it had no suspicion; the balls are raining on men and horses, and the rear of the regiment, having no intelligence of what is going on at the head of the column, continues to plunge into the single street 01 the village. This unfortunate regiment, after an enormous loss, was in great part taken prisoner. The Eighth Regiment, which had made a charge outside of the village, was likewise nearly destroyed. This hardy charge, in which the soldiers voluntarily sacrificed them- selves to cover the retreat of the French army, is one of the most unhappy episodes of the Battle of Reichshofifen. Half an hour later, four fresh regiments of Cuirassiers proceeded in the same way to sacrifice themselves and meet their destruction in the ravine of Elsasshausen.” The artist, after remarking that all the officers represented in the picture are portraits, proceeds to identify these brave and doomed commanders. In the foreground, and in the middle of the canvas, the officer whose back view we get, and whose right hand is raised to 76 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. check the column from dashing on the barricade, is Lieutenant Mathey, who was killed. Just over his head, the youth dis- charging his revolver at the window, is a young sub-lieutenant, who sat for his portrait to the artist in the attitude of his remembered action during the struggle. At the extreme right of the picture, and almost in the background, an officer who and especially from the narratives of officers who were present at the charge, as well as the personal information collected by me in the two journeys I made into Alsace. There are other likenesses of Cuirassiers, whose names I no longer recollect.” The whole canvas has the minuteness, the detail, of an army report; besides its minutise, it is grasped with a firm hand as a extends his broken sabre is the Commandant, Pimont de Hounaville. Other figures, more recognizable in the large picture than in the reduced engraving, are Colonel Waternau, (identifiable by his white moustache and by having beside him his officer of ordonnance in amaranth-colored kepi) who survived and is the present commander of the Ninth Regiment of Cuirassiers. At the left of Colonel Waternau is Lieutenant- Colonel Archambaud de Beaune, who was wounded fatally, and a little behind him. Captain Tescon. “ My picture,” adds the artist, “has been composed from the most exact documents. united composition. The impulse of a moving body, suddenly checked by an obstacle in front, is as well given as are the photographic particulars of arms and equipments ; at the left, the incident of the wounded horse leaning against the barrier to die, is striking and pathetic. “A Drummer of the French Army” (9 x 12,) by Alphonse de Neuville, is a capital photograph of the army musician, with his gaiety, his carelessness, his loose swing of the joints. Only an artist familiar with the camp and the march could render this living figure of the bivouac. Such a study reveals THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 77 to our eyes the roving tenant of the fields, a being perfectly comfortable vrithout the appliances and affections of home life, complete and contented with his little apparatus of blanket and canister; when once comfortably uniformed and proven- dered he is as self-sufficing as the snail in the shell, finding all the roof he needs in the cap and the system of ideas he carries under it, and in continual movement the repose we demand from fixed positions and definite shelter. toys for the crowding infants. Some children of a larger growth press eagerly on from behind, showing that every age has its toy, and that a blind faith in the goddess of good for- tune is as great a comfort to the adults as to the babe. Diaz doubtless brought with him from Spain this pretty mythology of a dispensing fairy and her inexhaustible pannier. Three little examples of the brilliant talent of Zamacois— a painter of small figures hardly inferior to Meissonier — are THE MORNING WALK. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY S. J. FERRIS, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY F. WILLEMS. One of Corot’s silvery scenes of dawn reveals the early laborer plodding along with his hoe, among light trees that dance against the dim vapors of the sky, beneath a row of humble roofs not yet crowned with the morning tufts of smoke, and beside a languid canal whose banks are confined with wet and muddy piles; the pearl of perfect peace seems dissolved in these swimming colors and shadows. By Diaz there are five examples, none worthier and richer than “ La F& aux Joujoux,” where the legendary form of Kriss Kingle is transfigured into a lovely fairy, with a basketful of found in the collection, the most cynical and laughable being “Revelation,” an old butler, whose wife must be the favorite soubrette of the establishment. He is seized with misgivings in his prophetic soul as he approaches a pair of ornamental ox-horns on a chimney-piece; this sarcastic fable is painted in the rich, begemmed manner of the artist’s debut and will hold a fair place among the limited treasures left by him at his early death. Larger than a majority of the Munkacsys owned in this country, “The Wrestler’s Challenge” (4^^ x 3 feet) must take 78 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. its place as one of his more important, if not more beautiful, works. It is a scene in a Hungarian inn, where the blacksmith, the carpenter, the butcher and other local characters have assembled to pass away an idle hour, and watch the feats of an ambulant acrobat, whose progress from hamlet to hamlet has brought him at length to their town. He is a stout fellow, dressed in tights and spangles, and at the moment depicted he dares the villagers to a wrestling match, after finishing his feats with the cannon-shot and the juggler’s balls, which la.st are attentively examined by a child on the floor. The groups are full of national character, and there is a fine look of dry calculation and measurement of forces in the face of the burly barefoot cock of the village, who stands forth and rolls his the traveler’s comforter, and cold, golden gleams on the yellow straw, alone relieve the desperate chill of this large, comfortless picture, which nevertheless conveys a lively traveler’s tale and a valuable local reminiscence. One of Baron Leys’ truly admirable pictures, in his earlier and more unctuous manner, is “The Message,” of no great size, but precious as a realistic Jan Steen, aristocratic as a Terburg. It exhibits a fair chatelaine giving orders to a page, the two living figures set like jewels in a dim, mirrored interior. It is very different from the harsh antiquarian studies of Leys’ later time, his intentional crudeness being missed, and replaced by all the puzzling softness and mystery of the Rembrandt chiaroscuro. This atmosphere is full of air, distance, tender- RIVER SCENE. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FKOM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY C. DAUBIGNY. sleeve to meet the challenge. Munkacsy’s “Hungarian En- campment on the Edge of a Forest,” with gipsy figures of strong character glimpsed in the wagons, and his Lazy Apprentice,” a delightful figure of a lazy boy going off into an explosive yawn at his bedside, are well-selected specimens, showing the collector’s appreciation of this robust and em- phatic talent. Joseph Chelmonski’s picture is perhaps a little too large for the subject, but it is a salutary gage of daring towards Schreyer, who has too long maintained a monoply of shaggy horses, timber sledges, and terrible roads in the land of the old Centaurs. It is a “Souvenir de Voyage en Ukraine” (6x feet,) painted in March, 1877. Passing one of the icons, or symbols of the Christian Passion, erected piously by the roadside, four horses drag a rough sleigh, with driver and one ill-starred passenger. The prevailing tone is an unpleasant leaden gray, to which the hues of the dappled horses and the dirtv snow contribute. Patches of red on the driver’s cap and ness; and the canvas, if it do not darken too much from its already dark present standard, may one day perplex the critics as a picture in which the great Van Rhyn himself, with all his own witchcraft of shadow, combined the silvery elegance of Breughel. “The Old-Clothes Dealer of Cairo,” by Gerome, is one of the master’s studies of foreign life, finished, minute, inexorably perfect, a photograph with the addition of color. You can almost hear the monotonous cry that proceeds from the fellow’s jaws, set in a mechanical state of expansion, like a machine kept open with a spring and a peg. Our western collectors of bric-a-brac will fall in love with the adorable gun, the celestial silk gown, and the seductive Saracen helmet with chain cape, exposed by this purveyor in the vulgar lanes of Cairo, seem- ingly with no sense of their virtuosite ; the artist will more greatly admire the statuesque solidity of the figure, the vibrating walk, with heacJ doddering from side to side, the solid bronze mask of the face, or even the nature-study of the dried, horny .• _ ) '• 'I '*•• ■ ^liiliSltflrY--'^*''' '•'i‘Wf? •' ■ THE COLLECTION OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON. 79 ankles that issue from the shapeless slippers. Next in value to one of Gerome’s priceless Roman tragedies is one of Gerome’s faultless ethnographic studies from the East. The model that this painter catches in a Cairo bazaar, or on a Jerusalem house-roof, is pinched in a trap; he cannot get away, he is, all there, every atom of him; he is henceforth the property of art, hair and nail, skin and substance: he is a preparation — an injection. Willems exhibits, with more of the breath of life than usual, and with the least possible of his habitual tedious repose, a fair lady dressed in weeds of the time of Marie de Medicis, a little flushed and glowing with the idea of taking a walk that may end in a breathless and adventurous meeting or rendez- vous. Her poodle puppy rests in her arms, a large hound prepares to accompany her, and she rests for one last moment on the threshold, where the velvet curtain, powdered with fleurs- picture is the treatment of the water, not interpreted with much sense of depth, perhaps, but massive of surface, heavy, shaking like festoons of sapphire between the boats. Fortuny had a lively appreciation of his friend’s ability to paint the sea. “There are certain motifs here,” he wrote to him from Portici, “which you alone could paint well.” The friends were to go to Venice together, when Fortuny’s untimely death at Rome in 1874 supervened. When tracing these rare views of the sea-city Rico must often have felt that something was missing, and that the sunshine of the Adriatic would have basked more brightly on his canvas if the eyes of his friend had been watching beside his own. “The Meuse” is a liquid, tranquil view by Clays, the best interpreter of the luminous repose of placid water. The scene shows a profound calm, only emphasized by the changing swirl of the petty currents, by the distant mill whose sails THE MEUSE AT DORDRECHT. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY F. BRISCOE, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY P. J. CLAYS. de-lys is held open for her by a page. Willems in this picture seems to have had his eyelids rubbed with the flower that awakens. Martin Rico, the comrade of Fortuny, is shown in a picture that glitters and coruscates, though the light it sheds is cold, and the blue of its enameled waves is an unsympathetic china-blue. It is a view in Venice, the oft-told tale of the Piazza, the Ducal Palace, the two columns, and the two Moors striking on the bell. All the front of the scene is dancing with the little rippling waves, never better painted by artist in their wet, changeable flutter. The avaricious gondolas, hungering for British tourists, crowd their hawk-beaks up to the steps of the Piazza, as mad for a job as the sacristan in Saint Mark’s or the commissionnaire in the Palazzo. The radiation in the lines of these black crocodile-boats, seeming to focus their heads from everywhere towards the prey, gives motion and animation to the foreground, above which presides the serene Past, in the person of these calm and stately buildings, impregnable, incapable of deterioration, whispering to each other of the Doges. But the special glory of the stand idle, and the grouping fishing-boats whose sails hang in motionless sheets. Daubigny is shown in two choice examples, of which a “ River Scene” is sketched for these pages. He is the poet of Evening, as Corot of the Dawn. The ineffable lightness of the atmosphere in a Corot is exchanged in his landscapes for the heavier airs of evening, more solid, .satisfying, real, and with a sense that more has been attained. The history of the day is over, and twilight hoards the gains and experience of the fruitful hours. The “River Scene” shows clumps of trees hanging out their thirsty foliage for the dew, the light batteaux drawn up on the bank, and the vapory sky waiting for the evening star. The example of Millet in this collection is of great value and importance, showing a shepherd wrapped in his long cloak, herding his sheep together, their fleecy backs form an indistinct cloud-bank all over the plain, as the herdsman and his dog marshal them to their repose in the indistinct shimmer of the evening. Courbet is seen in a fine study, “The Great Oak- Tree of Ornans.” Dupre, the last survivor of the group that 8o THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. included Rousseau and Troyon and Millet, is represented by two landscapes, one a beautiful oak-sapling, backed by a range of hills. Tissot’s “ The Reverie” and Stevens’ “ In the Country” are characteristic modern female figures. The general im- pression of the Gibson gallery is that it is the most fastidiously chosen, in a taste at once catholic and careful, in this country : perhaps we have no other that would yield the same number of pictures of so great a pecuniary value. CATALOGUE OF MR. HENRY C. GIBSON’S COLLECTION. Achenbach, a. — Coast Scene. Aranda, Jean. — Scene in a Spanish Wine Shop. Beranger, a. — Curiosity. Boldini, G. — The Summer Stroll. Bonheur, a. — Cattle. Bonheur, Rosa. — Highland Sheep. Boudin, E. L. — Marine. Boulanger, G. — The Escort to the Bath. Breton, Jules. — The Potato Harvest. “ “ The Flax Spinner. Brion, G. — The Invasion. Cabanel, a. — The Birth of Venus. Calame, a. — Lake Lucerne., near Brunnen. Chelmonski, J. — Traveling in the Ukraine. Clays, P. J. — The Meuse at Dordrecht. Compte-Calix, F. C. — Why don't he Come? Corot, J. B, C. — Landscape. “ “ Landscape — Morning. Courbet, G. — The Oak of Ornans. Couture, Thos. — La Victoire. “ “ A Roman Youth. Daubigny, C. — River Scene. “ “ View on the Seine. DE Beaumont, Ed. — Temptation. DE Cock, C. — Landscape. DE Neuville, a. — The Drimwier. Desgoffe, B. — Objects of Vertu. Detaille, Ed. — Charge of the Ninth Cuirassiers in the Village of Morsbronn, Aug. 6, iSyo. Detti, C. — Scene in a Studio. Diaz, N. — La fee aux joujoux. “ “ The Coining Storm. “ “ Landscape. “ “ An Eastern Tale. “ “ Fontainebleau. Dupre, Jules. — Landscape. “ “ Landscape. Faed, John. — The Mirror. Fontin, E. H. — Chrysanthemums. Fortuny, M. — Scene in Grenada — the Council House. Fromentin, E. — The Halt in the Desert. Gautier, Etienne. — Sisters of Charity. GfeROME, J. L. — The Old Clothes Dealer., Cairo. Giordano. — Grapes. Girard, Firmin. — Scene in Japan. Hamon, j. L. — Night. Hansen, H. — Court-yard, Palazzo Fara, Bologna. “ “ Interior. “ “ Interior Doge's Palace, Venice. Induno, G. — The Dancing Lesson. ISABEY, E. — Scene during the Reign of Louis XIV. “ “ The Duel. Jacque, C. E. — Landscape and Sheep. JuiLlANO, B. — The Day Dreamer. Kaemmerer, F. el — The Market Woman. Kaulbach, W. Von. — Charity. Leys, Baron EI. — The Message. Maccari, C. — The Model. Madrazo, R. — Dancing the Jaleo, in the Palace of Pilate, Seville. Meissonier, J. L. E. — Cavalier Waiting an Audience. Merle, H. — Maternal Affection. Meyer von Bremen. — The Little Rogue. Michetti, F. P. — Peasant Girl. Millet, J. F. — The Shepherd. Munkacsy, M. — The Cobbler's Apprentice. “ “ The Wrestlers. “ ‘ Hungarian Encampment. Pasini, a. — Scene in Constantinople. Plassan, a. E. — The Bath. Rico, D. Landscape. “ “ The Doge's Palace, Venice. Roffiaen, F. G. — Mount Rosa. Rossi, F. G. — Interior of a Studio. Rothermel, P. F. — Bacchus. Rothermel, P. E'. — The State-House — Day of the Battle of Germantown. “ “ The Bather. “ “ Elizabeth Signing the Death- Warrant of Essex. “ “ Desdemona. Rousseau, H. — Landscape. Royhet, F. — A Cavalier. Saint Jean, S. — Flowers. SCHENCK, A. Y. A.— The Last Hour. Sciireyer, a. — The Retreat. Seitz, A. — The Hunter's Story. vStevens, A. — In the Country. Sully, Thomas. — Child Reposing. Tissot, James. — The Reverie. Troyon, C. — Landscape and Cattle. Van Marcke, E. — Landscape and Cattle. Van Schendel, P. — Market Scene in Antwerp. Vautier, B. — The T'hirsty Traveler. Vi BERT, J. G. — Calling the Roll after Pillage. Villegas, Jose. — Spanish Recreations. VoLTZ, F. — Cattle. Willems, F. — The Morning Walk. Yutz, Carl. — Sheep. ZamacoIs, Ed. — Conte77iplation. “ “ On the Lookout. “ “ Revelation. Ziem, F. — Grand Canal, Venice. “ “ Sweet Waters, Constantinople. Zo, Achille. — Moorish Dancing Girl. SCULPTURE. Bailly, j. a. — The First Prayer. “ “ The Expulsion. Lombardi, G. — Susannah. Rinehart, W. H. — Hero. Roberts, H. — Bust of Eleanore. I KEY TO THE HEMICYCLE. PAINTERS. 1. Correggio (Anton(o Allegri, called) 1494 — 1534 2. Paul Vferon^se (Paolo Caliari, called) 1528 — 1588 3. Antonello de Messine 1425 — 1478 4. Murillo (Bartolomeo-EstabanI 1618 — 1682 5. Van Eyck (Jan) 1370 — U45 6. Titian (Tiziano Vbcbi.lio, called) 1477 — 1576 7. Terburg (Gerard) 1608 — 1681 8. Rembrandt (Paul Van Ryn, called) 1606 — 1669 9. Van der Heist (Barthblemy) 1613 — 1670 10. Rubens (Pikrre-Paul) 1577 — 1640 11. Velazquez (don Dirgo Rodriguez de Silvay) . 1399 — 1660 la. Van Dyck (Anton; 1599 — '^4' 13. Caravaggio IMichel-Angiolo Amrrigki de) . 1569 — 1609 14. Bellini (Giovanni) 1426 — 1516 15. Giorgione (Giorgio Barbakhlli, called) .... 1477 — 1511 16. Ruysdael (Jacob) 1830 — i68i 17. Potter (Paul) 1625 — 1654 18. Claude Lorrain (Claude Gbllbb, called) . . . 1600 — 1682 ig. Gasparo Poussin (Gaspakd Dugkbt, called;. . 1613 — 1675 SCULPTORS. Peter Fischer After 149s 21. Bontemps (Pierre) *S3« ‘0 *558 32. Lucca della Robbia 1388 — 1463 23- Benedetto da Maiano . . . . 1444 — 1498 24. Giovanni Pisano ? — 1320 25- Bandinelii (Baccio) 1487 — 1559 26. Donatello *383 — *466 27. Ghiberti (Lorenzo) 1378 — 14SS 28. Palissy ''Bernard) 1510 — 1590 29. Goujon (Jean) .... Worked in *541 — *572 30- Cellini (Benvenuto) 1500 — 1571 31- Pillon (Germain) .... Worked in 1559 — 1599 32. Puget (Pierre) 1622 — 1694 33- Jean de Bologne *529 — 1608 34. Ootlilc Art. 35. Greek Art. 36. Ictill IS. 37. Appc lies. 38. Ptiid las. 39. Xhe Seulus of Art. 40. Rom an Art. 41. Xtie Gtenalssance. ARCHITECTS. Painters. 42. Delorme (Philibert) 1518 — 1568 43. Peruzzi (Baldassare) 1481 — 1536 44. Erwin de Steinbach Lived in 1247 — 1318 45. Sansovino (Jacopo Tatti, called The) 1479 “ i57° 46. Robert de Luzarches Lived in 1220 — ? 47. Palladio (Andrea) 1518 — 1580 48. Brunelleschi (Filippo' i377 — >446 49. Jones (Inigo) *572 — 1651 50. Arnolfo di Lapo ’ — ‘3°° 51. Lescot (Pierrk) i5*° “■ *S?8 52. Bramante *444 ~ i5*4 53. Mansart (Francois) *598 — 1666 54. Vignole (Jacoppo Barozzio, called) i5°7 — *573 born. Died. 55. Beato Angelico (Fra Giovanni DA Fiesole, called) 1387— 1^55 56. Marc-Antoine (Marc -Antonio Raimondi). . . 1480 — 15.^7 57. Edelinck (Gbrard) 1640 — 1^07 58. Holbein (Hans) 1498 — 155^ 59. Le Sueur (Eustache) 1617 — 1655 60. Orgagna (Andrea) *329 — 1389 61. Sebastian del Piombo (Sebastiano DI Luciano, cld.) 1485 — 1547 62. Durer (Albert) 1471 — ijjg 63. Leonard de Vinci 1452 — jjjg 64. Dominiquin (Domenico Zampieri, called) . . . 1581 — 1641 65. Fra Bartolomeo 1469 — 1517 66. Mantegna (Andrea) 67. Jules Remain (Giulio Pippi, called) 68. Raphael (Rabfaello Sanzio) 69. Perugini (Pirtro Vannucci, called) 70. Masaccio (Tommaso Guidi, called; 71. Michael Angelo (Michel-Agnolo Buonarroti) 72. Andrea del Sarto (Andrua Vannucchi, called; 73. Cimabue (Giovanni) 74. Giotto 75. Poussin (Nicolas) 1431 — 1506 ‘499 — *546 1483 — 1520 14(6 — 1524 1402 — 1443 *474 — *563 1488 — 1530 1276 — 1336 1594 — 1665 THE HEMICYCLE .—ARTIST. HIPPOLYTE (CALLED "PAUL”) DELAROCHE; BORN AT PARIS. 1797; DIED, 1866; PUPIL OF BARON GROS. COLLECTION OF MR. W. T. WALTERS. BALTIMORE. THE RETURN OF THE NURSE, ENGRAVED BY SMEETON, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A E. PLASSAN, The Collection of William T. Walters. GALLERY, intelligently built for the be.st display of paintings, occupies part of the ground-floor of one of the most splendid houses in Baltimore, and contains a great part of this mag- nificent collection. The gallery is divided into two rooms, the smaller of which holds the water- INITIAL FROM A DESIGN BY KAEMMEREK. color paintings. The mass of pictures being very large, however, the canvases overflow into other apartments, while an extraordinary collection of bric-a-brac occupies a large up-stairs chamber, especially set apart for it, and in other nooks and corners helps to furnish the house. There are special apartments consecrated to exhibitions of furniture; one chamber, for instance, hung with silk, is dedicated to old French meubles, and with its carved bed, lace draperies, etc., resembles a boudoir of Marie Antoinette’s. A second room has a rich Dutch bedstead, and other furniture and curiosi- ties in strict keeping, so as to resemble a Rembrandt interior. As a collector of virtu Mr. Walters is known at all the shops and auctions of Europe. His assortment of oriental porce- lains and bronzes is fit to vie with those of the most impassioned European lovers of bric-a-brac. As compared with the celebrated collection of Cernuschi, the banker, at Paris, for example, it is to be noted that while many of Cernuschi’s vases and bronzes are in pairs, Mr. Walters will never admit a duplicate of an object, thus doubling the capacity of his collection for the display of varieties. When he buys Japanese porcelains in pairs, it is his custom to give away one of the duplicates to a museum. The Chinese and Japanese ambassadors to this country are fond of visiting the collection, where they can refresh their taste and patriot- ism with the sight of old historic pieces no longer ac- cessible in their own lands. There are choice potteries from 8i 82 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. the Summer Palace, and old Japanese temple censers ; hidden away in cabinets, there are miniature lacquered works in pro- fusion, and a large drawer is filled with Japanese swords, enough for the officers of an army. In the art department proper, this collection likewise overflows into receptacles and secretions beyond the powers of exhibition of any ordinary residence. A splendid series of fruit and flower pictures, in aquarelle, by Bonvin, (brother of Francois, the figure-painter,) is concealed in portfolios, and never meets the eye of the ordinary visitor. Other indications show that the pictures are not acquired for wall-display merely. The collector had long cherished the idea of bringing together, in a large album, a quantity of water-colors representing the idea of prayer; prayer, the mysterious effort of communion, as understood and prac- tised in antiquity and in modern times; as viewed by Turk and Christian, Buddhist, savage, or Hebrew. The first artists of Europe willingly participated in the scheme, and one of them, Gerome, wasted two whole days in an effort at producing a water-color painting, a line in which he had no experience, and which he gave up in despair; his contribution of a Turkish prayer-scene had to be executed in another form of art. The collection of subjects illustrating prayer remains as one of the most remarkable synthetic efforts ever dedicated by art to the harmonizing of a varied idea, and demonstrating the essential unity of man’s eternal instinct to place himself in harmony with the infinite. Among the many paintings of extreme importance deco- rating the walls of the gallery, the palm must be yielded to the “ Hemicycle,” by Paul Delaroche. I have seen nothing in America which seems so perfectly to bridge the civilization of the two continents, and place the connoisseurship of the new | world in connection with that of the old. The subject, dedi- | cated to the history of art, and treated with unexampled distinc- j tion of style, seems in effect to transport whole Vaticans and Louvres to these shores. In presence of these serene effigies, | representing the great masters of art as they never were repre- sented before, the American seeker may render his homage, | and feel that he is baring his soul to the influence of the mighty exemplars of civilization, manifested in the utmost perfection of our art, and so uniting himself to the vast congregation who ' are faithful to the best traditions the world over. The theme is, in fact, an assembling of the portraits of the chief artists of | all time, as they lived, dressed and wrought. The usual title, ‘ “ hemicycle,” simply describes the form and arrangement of the original picture, as bent around the semicircular or theatre- shaped lecture-room of the Beaux-Arts School, in Paris. Often, in this rich gilded hall, while listening to the critical expositions of Taine, or the antiquarian lore of Heuzey, have I fancied that a helpful influence came from these profound figures of dead artists encircling the wall of the room, tranquil in the realization of their glory, and holding up the hard, calm test of achievement to the faulty and experimental views of the lesser men who were lecturing. The Baltimore picture is the smaller replica, prepared by Delaroche for the use of the engraver — Henriquel Dupont — who spent on his large plate about one hundred months. Comparing the Baltimore duplicate with a vivid recol- lection of the great work in its place at the Paris School, I find that Delaroche’s linear precision of drawing — amounting in the Dupont engraving to a mathematical theorem — still exists in a great degree in the Paris painting, while it is scarcely seen at all in Mr. Walters’ specimen, which exchanges this accuracy of habit for a comparatively broad and generalized touch. I have never happened to see one of Delaroche’s small-scale pictures so loosely brushed as the present specimen ; but this is one of the cases where the owner’s accumulations of the evidence of authenticity must be allowed to overbear the arguments, often faulty and at best merely circumstantial, drawn from the com- ; parison of known examples. The work, as the best guarantees ; assure us, is that of Delaroche himself It is the habit of all great and busy painters to allow their assistants to sketch or trace the diagrams of their large compositions from the original studies upon the canvas, which they finally paint upon and develop so as to leave the finished work imprinted everywhere ] with the seal of their own style. This habit derogates in no degree from the authenticity of the present picture, while it ac- counts for the attribution of the painting in part to the pupils of Delaroche. The lively and convenient little biography of Eugene de Mirecourt, a writer who for being popular is not necessarily so faulty as is sometimes supposed, represents Delaroche as toiling for twenty days on this small canvas, in the presence of the original ; here is the passage : — “ On the sixteenth of December, 1855, a fire threatened to destroy the masterpiece. It was fortunately possible to control the progress of the flames, and the damages were repaired by the author of the picture himself The engraving of the Hemicycle cost Henriquel Dupont eight years. It being impossible for him to remain in the Palace of the Beaux-Arts for so long an interval, the pupils of Delaroche made a copy, which the master insisted on retouching himself To accomplish this task, we are assured that he remained face to face with the primitive work for three weeks ; it was in the midst of winter, and impossible to heat the room sufficiently, and the porter of the Beaux-Arts School used to wrap up Delaroche in woollen blankets.” This piece of testimony, rightly considered, goes to establish the authenticity of the smaller replica as a work really by Delaroche. Three steady weeks of labor on it at the Beaux-Arts School, to say nothing of the afterthoughts and caressings which he must have given it in the studio afterwards, would amply suffice for such a man to cover a canvas of its size completely with his own touches. The picture remained in France, most highly prized, till the disastrous epoch of the Commune. In that era of overturnings, when the hardest- headed dealers lost their calculating powers, and all confidence in values, even the firmest, was gone, Mr. Walters happily suc- ceeded in obtaining the canvas, and proceeded to remove it in great haste and with the necessary secrecy. In ordinary times every museum in every large French town would be ready to ruin itself rather than let such a masterpiece leave their shores. One would expect to find the government exhausting itself, with aid of ministry at home or embassy abroad, for its reten- tion or recovery. All things considered, the “ Hemicycle” is probably the highest effort of the nineteenth century in academic painting. It is, in fact, an estimate by Art itself of Art, — Art contemplating itself in a mirror. We here u -■y-' ^ — -^-"i IIP :.fc;:-, tV.vf • .•S'- ■,■■ . ‘ • . ! ,■. Aa/o, I .. ., I .!.» I. .|^i{|B|fi|||ipw^^ I II lyi.ii |ijj)ip||jp|||p||p|ppiwp^ww^^ r -^>ja THE COLLECTION OF WILLIAM T WALTERS. 83 Tiave the most accomplished of modern painters addressing himself, not to the representation of scenes created by his fancy, but to the celebration of his proper calling. He grasps this theme by a representation of Immortality itself, — the glory in which the great artists of the past repose. It is the ideal Paradise of aesthetics, in which the mighty souls of the past enjoy their eternity. What decoration of such a building as the Beaux-Arts palace could be more fit, what stimulus could be presented to the youths who there receive their prizes more grand and striking ? Every boy who marches up to the rostrum to accept his decoration fancies that the painted Fame is concealed by the bay-wreath of his immortality. Beside him, centralized and breathing the happiness and calm of his master art, the painter, Apelles, has the youth, the grace, of an Apollo. Five symbolic forms, the only ones in the picture not representative of historical characters, surround this idealized, and, as it were, finally deified trinity. Foremost, and in the midst, is Fame, a glad, crouching figure, — one of the most per- fect drawings of the nude achieved by our century,— ready to break into laughter as she throws abroad the practical congratu- lation of her wreath. At her right, Greek art, moving up to Phidias, like a sister ; lower down. Gothic art, dressed in green. FAME: THE CENTRAL FIGURE FROM THE “ HEMICYCLE.” FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY PAUL DELAROCHE. in the centre of the picture, casting out laurels from a heap of wreaths at her side, is taking her exquisite aim at himself. The composition, in fact, represents the eternal judgment-hall of Art, where the prize of renown is awarded in the presence of those who have done the best. A classical portico is seen in the centre of the picture ; under it sit three antique figures. Phidias, who undertook the sculptures of the Parthenon, sits like a judge, at the side of Apelles, who invented portrait- painting, and celebrated Alexander. All the considerations of Delaroche’s task, all the painter’s pride in his specialty, induced him to give the central place to this legendary painter, although his epoch was later, less pure, than that of the sculptor beside him. At Apelles’ left, and balancing the figure of Phidias, sits Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon and of the temple at Phigalia. The torso of Phidias is a striking study of the effects of age upon a body originally symmetrical ; the bald- ness, represented by the sculptor in his last portrait of himself. and bringing the model of a cathedral. She is the portrait of Delaroche’s wife, the daughter of Horace Vernet, who made him a figure-painter; he was at first a landscapist, but fell in love with this beautiful woman, who persuaded him to attempt her portrait, and the success of this love-task decided his vocation. On the other side sits Roman art, her brows encircled with the diadem of Roman empire ; and beside her, her child of the same soil, the Italian art of the Old Masters. On each side of this ideal group, in its classical porch, extend the wings of the picture, filled with portraits of the great artists, standing or sitting in their habits as they moved of old. At the extremity of the long marble seat, Lionardo, in velvet gown, and venerable with his drift of snowy beard, reposes as a king. Even Raphael, attended like a prince by his teacher, Perugino, and his pupil, Julio Romano, stands in the presence of Lionardo and takes his lesson from him. In front of Raphael, concentrated in his peculiar surly majesty, sits 84 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. £ • ^ FfAUS'^i. A RELAY OF HUNTING-DOGS ON THE DESERT. ENGRAVED BY FAUST, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. L. GEROME. Michael Angelo, on a carved marble block, his knotted workman’s hands on his knees, and altogether treated by Delaroche with a dash of caricature. The nearest neighbor to Michael and Raphael, with their angels’ names, is the nicknamed Masaccio, “ Dirty Tom,” the inspired sloven whom they both copied. Behind his head, that of Del Sarto, the' slave of his false wife’s beauty. “ There is a little busy tailor’s son running about in Florence,” said the great Michael to Raphael of Del Sarto, “who would make you sweat if he had popes and dukes for patrons, like you.” Next to Andrea Del Sarto, the profile of Cimabue, literally copied from an existing fresco in which the great thirteenth-century father of modern painting is repre- sented; and then his pupil, greater than himself, the mighty creator, Giotto; among these Italians, in the corner of the picture, the French painter introduces his noble fellow-countryman, Poussin, from his self-painted portrait in the Louvre, — that French child of Italian art, who might be said to be born from the cartoons of Raphael. In front of Raphael’s serene head, at an equal height with itself, is the monkish one of Bartolomeo, that grand rival who has left but a handful of stupendous works, but these almost weighty enough to crush the Urbinate himself. Over THE AWAKENING. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY C. F. JALABERT. the friar’s shoulder, the profile of Mantegna, whose “ Triumph of Cffisar,” preceding Raphael’s triumphs, is at Hampton Court. Dominichino, the humble, the persecuted, shelters himself between the monk and Lionardo. Next to Lionardo sits Orgagna,’whose “ Triumph of Death,” a breath of early poetry, gives a thinking reality to the old walls of the Pisan graveyard. Above Lionardo stands Diirer, who exchanged drawings with Raphael from his northern German home, and behind him Del Piombo, that strange union of Venice color and the anatomy of Rome. A mixed symposium of worthies occupies the seat near Lionardo. After Orgagna, Le Sueur, who decorated the Chartreuse with the Life of St. Bruno; then Holbein, the pet of Henry VIII; then the engravers, Edelinck and Marcantonio; and finally, completing this detachment of figure-artists, the vast standing form of Fra Angelico, bowing his head to listen to his angels. All the artists so far were more remarkable as designers than as colorists ; it is at the other extremity of the picture that full prominence is given to the teachers of color and light and shade. Here are the Venetians, with Titian and Rubens and Rembrandt. Sitting in front, in his rich Dutch brocades, like a cramped but kindly schoolmaster, is John Van Eyck, treated as if he were indeed the inventor of oil-painting. Antonello of Messina, when all the painting of the Italians was only held together with glue, went to Bruges, became his pupil, and stole the precious secret for Italy. Antonello, the third figure from the left, stands at his teacher’s side like a prize scholar. Behind him is Veronese, the greatest of decorative painters; behind him again Correggio, the lonely man, who invented the volup- tuousness of the “ gallant painters” long before them, and in the very lifetime of Raphael. The great standing figure here- about is Titian, robed shroud-like, in his century of life. Then Rembrandt, then Rubens — the colorists, of the Dutch and Flemish schools — coming down, in this trinity, from the north, to exchange their mysteries with the Venetian. Rubens’ pupil, the handsome Vandyck, sits at his side. Over Vandyck’s shoulder looks Velasquez, a more prominent place for whom would be the principal change that modern criticism could venture to have asked of Delaroche. Behind Titian is Murillo. o'- % ■'■5 rilE . .PmTiADEliPHIA-' ’ 1 THE COLLECTION OF WLLLIAM T. WALTERS. 8S Rembrandt’s short figure is artfully dissimulated by an arrange- ment of steps and shadows ; he is flanked by exquisite painters of the north, the portraitist, Van der Heist, and the genre- painter, Terburg. Behind Vandyck, his face in the shadow of his hand, sulks the master of shadows, Caravaggio. In front of him majestically stand forth the great early Venetians in their pride of youth, Grand George, or Giorgione, and John Bellini. Behind Giorgione’s stalwart figure are seen suc- cessively, Ruysdael, selected as the apostle of Dutch landscape, (Hobbima was not yet worshipped in Delaroche’s time,) Paul Potter, the cattle-painter; Claude Lorrain, and Caspar Poussin, the French landscapists. Donatello, whose look of age and care is in singular contrast with the eternal youth of his best-known work, the St. George of Or San-Michele. In front of him, the superb dark figure of Ghiberti, author of “The Gates of Paradise.” Next, in background, Palissy the Potter; by his side, another protestant artist, the sculptor Goujon, killed on St. Bartholomew’s day; he bends one knee gracefully on the marble seat. Cellini, behind him, draws off from everybody, with his own matchless audacity and grandeur. Under his haughty head sits Pilon, who carved a tomb for Francis II, the husband of Marie Stuart; next him Puget, sculptor of figure-heads for the ships of Jean Bart, and of the “Milo,” converses with John of Bologna, who. r DIOGENES. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY J. L. GEROME. On the side towards Phidias, and continuing the line formed by the painter-colorists, come the artists who work without the aid of color — the sculptors. Luca della Robbia, who united sculpture and color in ceramics, sits in his long wrinkled gown, next to the painter Claude, but leaning from him towards John Pisano, the sculptor and architect of the great Campo Santo. Between these two, with uplifted hand, in the liveliest conversational attitude, sits Benedetto di Majano, author of the sculptured pulpit of Santa Croce, in Florence. Above these interested talkers stand Peter Fischer, in the leather cap he wears in his self-portrait placed on the famous Nuremberg shrine, and Bontemps, who had the honor of carving the tomb of Francis I. Bandinelli, more honored for his rich bas-reliefs and choir-screens than for the extravagant statues he carved in rivalry with Michael Angelo, stoops over the three conversationalists. Then comes the sage head of placing him.self next to Phidias, seems empowered to send his flying “ Mercury” into the Greek sky as a herald of the renaissance. The architects gather to the side of Ictinus; they are also next that group of Italian painters whose works were most nearly associated with the architectural glories of Italy. Delorme, who built the Tuileries; then Peruzzi, whom Michael Angelo succeeded as architect of St. Peter’s; then Erwin von Steinbach, of the Strasburg cathedral; and Sansovino, whose works surround the loveliest of city squares, at Venice, con- verse together and compare their diverse nationalities. Then, stately and important, but arranged in a back view because no portrait of him exists, stands Robert de Luzarches,the legendary builder of Notre Dame; next, Palladio, architect of the Doges’ Palace; then, Brunelleschi, inventor of the modern dome, as it soars over the Florence cathedral; Inigo Jones, builder of St. Paul’s — the only Englishman represented — tough and 86 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. resolute in his background place; Arnolfo di Lapo, constructor of S. Maria delle Fiore, at Florence, “the bride;” Lescot, of the Louvre; Bramante, architect of the Vatican, and uncle of Raphael; then, near Vignola, builder of the Escorial, Mansard, under whose famous invention of roofs we all, from time to time, shelter ourselves, and whose own personal dome of thought is obscured in the picture by a neighboring elbow, as he sits and painter to cut holes of blackness in a wall that has no other visible means of support would be a structural solecism. Its serenity and general coolness of temperament, its academic exactness, its blonde breadth as of a bas-relief, are so many concessions made by Delaroche, who had his black moods often, to Monsieur Duban the builder. The great “Hemicycle” occupied Delaroche from 1837 to THE OBLIVION OF SORROW. ENGRAVED BY BUTTERWORTH, FROM THE PAINTING BY LOUIS GALLAIT clasps his knees in a posture of unsurpassable comfort and content. Indeed, all the personages, whose list is now com- plete, are arranged in the most varied postures consistent with natural dignity, and, what is so refreshing in French art, without any posing. The whole frieze of figures extends with unrepeated attitudes and unconscious majesty. Our century has done nothing so pure and sincere, so calmly right in its arrangement of prodigious difficulties, as this immense work. Those who would ask for more of color, more of depth, more of Rembrandt and Titian, should remember that this is a composition meant as an ally to architecture, and that for a 1841. He received for it eighty thousand francs; its diminished replica is now worth greatly more than that. Thiers, Minister of the Interior under Charles X, had commanded of Delaroche the entire decoration of the Madeleine church. The painter occupied two years in Italy making studies for the work, when he learned that the cupola had been given to Ziegler. Upon this he threw up the task, and the picture for the Beaux-Arts School, at first contemplated as a canvas of twelve feet and fifteen figures, was ordered as a compensation. “ Let me make a frieze,” said Delaroche, and produced the present composi- tion of seventy-five figures. “ The distributors of the revenue,” :v| BARRIE, PHIIADELPHIA. \ THE COLLECTION OF WILLIAM T WALTERS. 87 says de Mirecourt, “took alarm at the proposal; they rep- resented to the artist that they had not the funds for recom- pensing such a gigantic work. ‘Be easy,’ he answered, ‘I ask no additional payment. Let the Ministry only subscribe to the engraving, and we shall be quits.’ Delaroche, in fact, aware that the engraving of Dupont was to be the great engine of his fame to all time, renounced in the engraver’s favor a large part of his recompense. Meanwhile the artist had become a hermit. Irritated by the criticisms of his best pictures, pub- lished by Gustave Blanche in the Revue des Deux Monies and by others elsewhere, he abstained from exposing his works in the annual exhibitions, dating from the year 1836 to the day of his death. In this eclipse were included the years devoted to the “ Hemicycle.” Thackeray saw him in his retirement. Says the Englishman, in his most flippant way; “ He is, at present, occupied with a vast work at the Beaux-Arts, where the writer of this had the honor of seeing him — a little, keen-looking man, some five feet in height. He wore, on this important occasion, a bandanna round his head, and was in the act of smoking a cigar.” The elder Dumas also describes the lustrum of oblivion. “ Delaroche allotted five years to the writing of this fine page ; but during the five years that he keeps himself shut up in the Beaux-Arts palace to write it, Delaroche lets himself be forgotten. We forget soon, in France, and to be dead is better than to be dropped. At the end of five years one heard people saying, ‘Don’t you know Delaroche?’ ‘Delaroche? — Delaroche? Oh, yes. — Well?’ ‘Well, he has finished his grand task.’ ‘What grand task?’ ‘Why, his Hemicycle.’ ‘ Oh, so there was a Hemicycle !’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And where is all that?’ ‘At the Beaux-Arts palace.’ ‘Ah, really?’ ‘You ought to go.’ ‘Undoubtedly I shall go, — that is, if I can find the time.’ — ^When only five years before, a canvas of Delaroche’s caused a rush of all Paris ! It is as many as can be estimated, if a thousand persons gathered to see this magnificent fresco, alone worth all the other pictures of Delaroche.” Let not the spectator of the “ Hemicycle” forget THE SUICIDE. FAC-SIMILE OF A SKETCH BY S. J. FERRIS, FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY A. G. DECAMPS. that, among other costly payments the artist laid down for it in sacrifice, he calmly and with open eyes paid these years of Paris neglect. MERICA, from her own anti- qu iti e s, that have no h i s- tory — or had not, until they were mix- ed with blood by Spanish conquest — loves dearly to turn to the 1 e- gends and lore of Europe. Our first taste in architecture in this country was Greek, almost oppressively Greek; and Latrobe is hardly yet dis- placed by the architects of the Romanesque and Jacobean affectations. Our picture-buyers, and many of our painters, love the legend of Orpheus better than the legend of Hiawatha. Orpheus soothes us here in the uncongenial West, as Shakes- peare makes him soothe Queen Catherine at Bridewell : Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountain-tops that freeze Bow themselves when he did sing. Jalabert, one of the most poetical pupils of Delaroche’s atelier, represents the musician charming the dryads and water- nymphs. A group of them float and pause, like exhalations, on the margin of a forest brook : they repose in a delicate bevy like doves, one of them, in the middle, expressing the absorption of listening with still more grace and profoundness than the others. The rising ground among the trees affords what may be called an upper register to the picture, placed upon which is Orpheus, a figure dark against the sky, striking the harp and appealing to the heavens for his inspiration. The painter, born at Nimes, and medaled away back in 1847, still ' lives and continues the tradition of his great master. Another of his pictures in the collection, “The Awakening,” is of very delicate and precious beauty, where the maternal love seems ready to turn to worship, and the babe’s instinct of confidential trust has in it something of the divine, so that the group exhibits much of the sacred beauty of a Holy Family. Gerome, as well as Jalabert, is well represented in the Walters gallery, so that the two principal pupils of Delaroche stand sentry before his “ Hemicycle,” like a guard of honor. Gerome’s most famous picture, from the Salon of 1857, is in this collection,— “ The Duel after the Masquerade,” of which the London Athenaum said, in 1858, “There is an epitome of a hundred passionate novels in this painting.” The masked ball 88 THE ART TREASURES OF AMERICA. is supposed to have been held in Paris, and a pair of jealous rivals have adjourned at dawn to the Bois de Boulogne for a duel. The cabs that have brought them wait in the distance, under the skeleton trees, and their blood reddens the snow of that wintry time called “the gay season.” In the fog and the sleet the two combatants have engaged in a passage at arms that is fatal to one of them. The victor, dressed as an Iroquois brave, is making off, with the consciousness of his guilty deed written in the lines of his back, as this painter knows so well how to write with the contours of an attitude: his second, an athletic figure, dressed as Harlequin, supports him, and his sword lies in the snow. The group in front is horrible. The vanquished duelist is dressed as Pierrot; his give a name to his philosophy, sits in the opening of his earthen wine-cask, and polishes the lantern that is to help him in the search for an honest man ; the naked limbs of Diogenes are designed with sculptural truth to nature. A third picture of the accomplished master represents “A Relay of Hunting- Dogs in the Desert.” Its quality is of the highest that Gerome has reached. Its owner relates how the artist remarked of it, in iS/Si is one of the very few of my works which, when completed, gave me entire satisfaction.” Indeed, the landscape sentiment, with its breadth of torrid wind that sculptures the sand-hills into ever-varying forms, and flutters the tunic of the sturdily-planted Nubian slave, is masterly in its oppressive power. The brace of hounds are of that skeleton-like Kur- ALVA VIEWING HIS VICTIMS, EGMONT AND HORN. ENGRAVED BY BUTTERWORTH, FROM THE WATER-COLOR BY LOUIS GALLAIT. death-agony stamps itself on his face, covered with the white flour which plasters the visage of the clown, and his form drags from the shoulders with the supine flexibility of a dead body: his nerveless arm, stripped to the shoulder, still mechanically guides the rapier. He is held by the shoulders in the arms of his second, dressed as the Duke de Guise, of the epoch of St. Bartholomew’s day; another friend, dressed as a doge of Venice, searches for the wound in his breast, and a third, muffled in a black domino, thrusts the dark hood from his face and tears his hair at the spectacle. Near by lies the dying Pierrot’s cloak and his silken mask, whose eyes stare senselessly, never more to receive expression from his fading glances. It is an appalling story of anguish and crime, made infinitely more thrilling by the contrast of its masquerade of levity. Another important work, by the same hand, is the “Diogenes.” The cynic, surrounded by the astute dogs that distan breed, of which Gerome always has two or three specimens dreaming over his hearth-rugs. Gallait still survives to continue in Belgium the traditions of his instructor, Delaroche. Indeed, a critic of Brussels or Antwerp would hardly admit him to be inferior to his great master. The gallery possesses by him two repliche, in small, of his most famous works. One, in oil, is of the “ Oubli des Douleurs.” Gallait’s favorite square-faced young model, with the dark hair dripping back from his broad forehead, bends Over a sleeping girl who reposes on his knee. Brother and sister are dressed as ambulant musicians, and the look of divine pity which melts in the face of the brother, as he touches, harp-like, the strings of his violin in the diminuendo of some Lethean slumber-song, is one of those triumphs of art which best entitle its higher expressions to be called divine. The other Gallait is a water-color, a repetition, in small, of his celebrated “ Egmont and Horn.” The merciless Alva, while J A HOPELESS