Part 22

This wonderful picture of a Flemish interior--dated 1434--is as spruce and clean now (for the small twig broom did its work so well that the goodman and his wife were not afraid to walk on the polished floor without their shoes), as it was when first painted five hundred years ago. This is the more interesting from the eventful history the picture has had. At one time we hear of a barber-surgeon at Bruges presenting it to the Queen-regent of the Netherlands, who valued it so highly that she pensioned him in return for the gift. At another it must have passed again into humbler hands, for General Hay found it in the room to which he was taken in 1815 at Brussels to recover from wounds at the battle of Waterloo. He purchased the picture after his recovery, and sold it to the British Government in 1842. "It is," says Sir Edward Poynter, "one of the most precious possessions in the national collection, and, in respect of its marvellous finish, combined with the most astounding truth of imitation and effect, perhaps the most remarkable picture in the world."

For the delicacy of workmanship note especially the mirror, in which are reflected not only the objects in the room, but others beyond what appears in the picture, for a door and two additional figures may be distinguished. In the frame of the mirror, too, are ten diminutive pictures of the ten "moments" in the Passion of Christ "as material for the lady's meditation while doing her hair." Notice also the brass-work of the chandelier. "There are many little objects about, such as an orange on the window-sill, placed there to catch the light. Through the window you can see a cherry-tree, with sunshine on the ripe fruit. In the treatment of these and similar details Jan van Eyck shows a liking for dots and spots of light" (Conway). Above the chandelier, elaborately wrought, is the painter's signature. This signature (in Latin), "Jan van Eyck was here," exactly expresses the modesty and veracity which were the keynote of his art. The artist only professed to come, to see, and to record what he saw. Arnolfini was the representative at Bruges of a Lucca firm of merchants, and Van Eyck gives us a picture of the quiet, dry, business folk exactly as he found them.

187. THE APOTHEOSIS OF WILLIAM THE TACITURN OF HOLLAND.

_Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See 38._

A sketch of a picture in the possession of the Earl of Jersey. This sketch was formerly in the possession of Sir David Wilkie, R.A.

189. THE DOGE LEONARDO LOREDANO.

_Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516).

Giovanni Bellini (often shortened into Giambellini)--the greatest of the fifteenth-century artists--"the mighty Venetian master who alone of all the painters of Italy united purity of religious aim with perfection of artistical power"[106]--belonged, it is interesting to note, to a thoroughly artistic family. His father, Jacopo, drawings by whom may be seen in the British Museum, was an artist of repute; his elder brother Gentile (see 1213) was another. The two brothers studied together in their father's school at Padua, and there they formed a friendship with Mantegna, who afterwards married their sister. Two pictures in our Gallery (Bellini's, 726; and Mantegna's, 1417) recall the days of their early association. By blood every inch an artist, so was Giovanni also in character. His life was one long devotion to his art. He lived to be ninety, and showed to the end increasing knowledge and power. Albert Dürer wrote in 1506, when the grand old man was eighty, that "though very old he was still the best painter in Venice."[107]

This famous portrait must have been painted about the same time, for Leonardo Loredano only became Doge in 1501. About 1460, Bellini had settled in Venice, where he soon rivalled and eclipsed the established school of the Vivarini. In 1479, when his elder brother Gentile departed to Constantinople, Giovanni was appointed in his place to carry on the series of pictures for the Hall of the Great Council in the Ducal Palace. These works were destroyed by fire in 1577. The documents referring to them show the terms on which he worked. He was engaged at a fixed rate of salary to work "constantly and daily, so that said pictures may be completed as expeditiously as possible, with three assistants, also paid by the State, to render speedy and diligent assistance." One of these assistants wa