Part 11

Lord Orford, more familiarly known as Horace Walpole, the very finest gentleman of the last century, and the founder of the Strawberry Hill Collection, was the youngest son of the eminent minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and was born October 5th, 1717. After studying at Eton and Cambridge, he travelled; and it was while in Italy that he fostered the love of Art, and taste for elegant and antiquarian literature, which took such complete possession of him as to engross the principal part of his long life. Walpole has by some critics been designated an elegant trifler; yet if we consider that he was one of the first to turn public attention to a taste for the Arts, that he fostered the engravers in this country who became eminent in their branch of Art, that he brought from obscurity various historical memoirs of deep interest, we shall hesitate to consider him a trifler. Among English writers, Walpole is admitted to be one of the best models for lively epistolary correspondence. In a letter to Sir Horace Mann, he writes: “You know my passion for the writings of the younger Crébillon; you shall hear how I have been mortified by the discovery of the greatest meanness in him; and you will judge how one must be humbled to have one’s favourite author convicted of mere mortal mercenariness! I have desired Lady Mary to lay out thirty guineas for me with Liotard, and wished if I could to have the portraits of Crébillon and Marivaux for my cabinet. Mr. Churchill wrote me word that Liotard’s price was sixteen guineas; that Marivaux was intimate with him and would certainly sit, and that he believed he could get Crébillon to sit too. The latter, who is retired into the provinces with an English wife, was just then at Paris for a month; Mr. Churchill went to him, and told him that a gentleman in England who was making a collection of portraits of famous people, would be happy to have his, etc. Crébillon was humble, ‘unworthy,’ obliged, and sat. The picture was just finished, when, behold! he sent Mr. Churchill word that he expected to have a copy of the picture given him,--neither more nor less than asking sixteen guineas for sitting! Mr. Churchill answered that he could not tell what he should do, were it his own case; but that it was a limited commission, and he could not possibly lay out double; and was now so near his return that he could not have time to write to England and have an answer. Crébillon said, then he would keep the picture himself--it was excessively like. I am still _sentimental_ enough to flatter myself, that a man who could beg sixteen guineas, will not give them, and so I may still have the picture.”

Walpole died on the 2nd of March, 1797. By command of the Earl of Waldegrave, the contents of Strawberry Hill were sold by auction on the 25th of April, 1842, and the proceeds of the sale, which lasted twenty-four days, amounted to £33,450 11_s._ 9_d._

Mr. Tiffin, in his interesting little book, “Gossip about Portraits,” writes mournfully of the dispersion of this _recherché_ collection: “What a melancholy time to the amateur was that at Strawberry Hill, in 1842, when these treasures were dispersed. In recalling that time when I wandered through these rooms looking listlessly at many objects that to the connoisseur (not only of art but of history) ‘spoke volumes.’ I began faintly to understand the worth of such collections.”

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_THE SALTMARSHE COLLECTION._

On the 4th, 5th, and 6th of June, 1847, was sold by auction, by Messrs. Christie and Manson, the collection of pictures, the property of Mr. Higginson, of Saltmarshe, Herefordshire. The total amount realized by the three days’ sale, reached the enormous sum of £46,695 3_s._ At the close of the sale it was remarked that the proceeds of the last day, £35,789 9_s._ was the greatest sum realized in one day on record. Though the collection was, on the whole, more remarkable for numbers than quality, it contained some good and important works. Mr. Higginson was a gentleman possessed of considerable wealth, and was in his day a rapacious accumulator of pictures. Five of them alone brought upwards of £10,000. On the first day’s sale, a fine example of Constable’s fetched 360 guineas; a Nasmyth, 44 guineas; and “A Country Ale-house,” the old hackneyed subject of George Morland, 95 guineas. On the second day, a sum of 405 guineas was obtained for a Gerhard Dow. On the third, and most important day of the sale, the late Marquis of Hertford gave the grand sum of 1000 guineas for a small female head by Greuze, one of the most distinguished artists of the modern French school. A truly important work of Claude’s fell to the same nobleman for 1400 guineas. A landscape, the joint production of P. De Koning and Lingelbach, was purchased by the late Sir Robert Peel, and we believe has just been sold to the Government by his son, the present Sir Robert. “The Holy Family, with Elizabeth and Saint John,” by Peter Paul Rubens, which was formerly in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna, and afterwards in the possession of M. Delahante, who gave 3000 guineas for it, upwards of thirty years previous to the sale, was knocked down by the auctioneer to the late Marquis of Hertford for the reduced sum of 2360 guineas.

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_THE STOWE COLLECTION._

The contents of Stowe, the house of the Buckingham and Chandos family, were brought to the hammer on Tuesday, the 15th of August, 1848. For full particulars of the genealogy of this old and noble family, we must, with pleasure, refer our readers to the annotated catalogue of the choicest objects of art and vertu contained in its princely mansion. The editor, Mr. Henry Rumsay Forster, evidently bestowed considerable pains on the work he took in hand; and in his “Historical Notice of Stowe,” after enumerating the visits to it of almost all the crowned heads of civilized Europe, gives some lines written by Mr. Disraeli, M.P., while a guest at Stowe in the year 1840. They are in allusion to a beautiful statuette by Cotterell, of the Duke of Wellington, which His Grace of Buckingham had purchased, and up to the time of the sale had preserved in the library.

“Not only that thy puissant arm could bind The tyrant of a world, and, conquering Fate, Enfranchise Europe, do I deem thee great; But that in all thy actions I do find Exact propriety: no gusts of mind, Fitful but wild, but that continuous state Of ordered impulse mariners await In some benignant and enriching wind,-- The breath ordained of nature. Thy calm mien Recalls old Rome, as much as thy high deed; Duty thine only idol, and serene When all are troubled: in the utmost need Prescient; thy country’s servant ever seen, Yet sovereign of thyself whate’er may speed.”

The mansion was opened for private view on the 3rd of August, 1848. The sale, ever to be remembered amongst collectors, commenced on the 15th of the same month, and terminated on the 7th October following. A sale of forty days! realizing the extraordinary sum of £75,562 4_s._ 6_d._ The sale of the library followed, and extended over twenty-four days, and produced £10,355 7_s._ 6_d._

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_THE BERNAL COLLECTION._

In March and April, 1855, was dispersed by auction the valuable collection made by Mr. Ralph Bernal of articles of rare excellence, and of an age extremely rich in ornamental art, extending from the Byzantine period to that of Louis Seize. The high prices which the several articles brought are to be attributed rather to their artistic character than to their extrinsic value as historic relics. They consisted of Oriental, German, Dresden, Sèvres, Capo di Monte, and Chelsea china; portraits remarkable for their costumes; miniatures; mediæval metal-work and ecclesiastical silver; Limoges, Dresden, and Oriental enamels; carvings in ivory; Faenza and Palissy ware; armour, arms, and stained glass; Venetian and German glass, watches, clocks, and compasses, etc.

Several of the articles brought extraordinary prices. Among the most costly items were: A Sèvres cabinet, £465; a pair of Dresden candelabra, £231; a pair of vases, painted _à la Watteau_, 95 guineas; King Lothaire’s magic crystal, bought by Mr. Bernal for 10 guineas, and once sold in Paris for 12f., brought 225 guineas; Sir Thomas More’s candlesticks, bought by Mr. Bernal for 12 guineas, were sold for 220 guineas; the celebrated reliquaire of the King’s, 63 guineas; a metal-gilt Moresque dish, £57 15_s._; a curious steel lock for a shrine, £32; St. Thomas à Becket’s reliquaire, 27½ guineas; a Limoges enamel portrait of Catherine di Medicis, 400 guineas; a Faenza plate, bought at Stowe for £4, brought £120; a circular Bernard Palissy dish, £162. Among the armour, steel gauntlets, 50 guineas a pair; a warder’s horn, £56; and a Spanish breastplate of russet steel, £155. The first three days the porcelain produced upwards of £6,000; and about 400 lots of Majolica ware, which cost Mr. Bernal 1,000 guineas, in this sale realized upwards of £7,000,--a proof of the skill of Mr. Bernal as a collector; and showing that the purchase of articles of _vertu_, guided by correct taste and judgment, may prove a very profitable means of investment.

Rarely has the dispersion of any assemblage of works of art realized such high prices as the first portion of Mr. Bernal’s Collection. In neither of the sales of Mr. Beckford at Fonthill, at the Strawberry Hill sale (in 1842), or at that of Stowe (in 1848), were there assembled so many choice articles as in the Bernal Collection. Fonthill, Strawberry Hill, and Stowe included many treasures of historic repute, more valuable for having been possessed by celebrated personages than for their perfection as works of art. Mr. Bernal’s Collection, however, presented higher claims; inasmuch as his judgment was acknowledged over Europe. The entire sale realized £62,680 6_s._ 5_d._

Mr. J. R. Planché, who by request wrote a few introductory lines to the catalogue, thus speaks of his departed friend, with whom he had been associated for thirty years: “Distinguished among English antiquaries by the perfection of his taste, as well as the extent of his knowledge, the difficulty of imposing upon him was increased by the necessity of the fabrication being fine enough in form, colour, or workmanship to rival the masterpiece it simulated; to be, in fact, itself a gem of art, which it would not pay to produce as a relic of antiquity.” Mr. Bernal was for many years a member of parliament, having sat successively for Lincoln, Rochester, and Weymouth, and held the post of Chairman of Committees. In politics he was a supporter of the Grey and Melbourne ministries. He died at his house in Eaton Square, on the 25th of August, 1854.

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_SALE OF DANIEL O’CONNELLS LIBRARY, PRINTS, PICTURES, ETC., IN MAY, 1849._

The last day’s sale is thus described by the _Freeman’s Journal_:--“The auction on Monday concluded the sale of the standard works, and at its close all were disposed of save some few insignificant lots for which no bidders could be found. A large number of miscellaneous works of small value were sold in lots at very trifling prices. One lot, including a number of loose pamphlets and tracts, many of them bearing O’Connell’s autograph and notes, sold for £2. The sales of the preceding day were varied. A number of the Irish and Scottish Art Union prints sold at prices varying from 2_s._ to 3_s._ each. A fine proof copy of the well-known print, ‘Cross Purposes,’ brought a guinea. A copy of the now scarce print of ‘Henry Grattan’ fetched (after some spirited bidding) one guinea, Landseer’s ‘Angler’s Daughter’ (engraving), 10_s._ 6_d._ ‘The Volunteers in College Green’ was then put up. This engraving, now scarce, was keenly competed for; it brought £1 10_s._ A paltry landscape painting in oil, ‘The Meeting of the Waters,’ brought 7_s._ An engraving of Carlo Dolce’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ fetched 6_s._ A little portrait of that little man, Lord John Russell, was then put up for competition; but, amongst a sale-room full of gentry and citizens, not a solitary bidder was found willing to hazard the risk of even by chance becoming the possessor of this work of art. The accomplished salesman displayed the portrait in every possible light, and solicited an initiatory movement towards setting Lord John a-going, by infinitesimal beginnings in specie; but _non eundum erat_. It was no use; in vain was the noble lord’s _eidolon_ turned towards each group of by-standers,--in vain did Mr. Jones insinuate ‘Any advance?’ ‘Sixpence for it?’ ‘Eightpence did you say, sir?’ said the indefatigable Mr. Jones (to an old gentleman with a white hat). ‘No, sir, I didn’t; nor fourpence,’ replied the gentleman, angrily. ‘Oh, I beg pardon; well then, fourpence. Any advance?’ Alas! no; not a solitary bidder. Even the Liffey Street picture-brokers looked angrily at this useless and protracted inquiry as to whether there was any advance with regard to Lord John. Finally, the lot was withdrawn. The next lot was a small and handsomely framed portrait in oils of O’Connell. It seemed a tolerably clever copy of the well-known medium size engraving of the original. This picture was put up at a low figure, but was warmly competed for, and was knocked down at £1 10_s._ A large oil painting of the ‘Madonna and Child,’ not of very high merit, sold for £1. Two engravings, large size,--one, ‘The Trial of Charles I.,’ the other, ‘The Trial of Lord Strafford’--sold at 30_s._ each. Several other pictures, engravings, and statuettes were sold at very low prices. A splendid Norman steel cross-bow, with appurtenances complete, sold for £1 8_s._ The sales closed with some miscellaneous articles, none of which brought beyond average prices. The library, altogether, was certainly not such, either in the number of the volumes or their description, as might be supposed to form the collection of O’Connell; and as to the prices obtained, they were, as we have before remarked, not beyond the intrinsic value of each lot, apart from all associations connected with them.”

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_HOLBEIN._

Holbein, the painter, once engaged with his landlord to paint the outside of his house. The landlord found that the painter left his work very frequently to amuse himself elsewhere, and determined to keep a constant eye upon him. Holbein, anxious to get rid of his suspicious taskmaster, ingeniously contrived to absent himself at the very time when the landlord fancied he was quietly seated on the scaffold, by painting two legs apparently descending from his seat; and which so completely deceived the man, that he never thought of ascertaining whether the rest of the body was in its place.

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_PALLADIO (ANDREW)._

Andrew Palladio, the celebrated architect, was born in 1518, at Vicenza, in Lombardy. He learnt the principles of his art from Trissino; after which he studied at Rome, and on his return to Lombardy constructed a number of noble edifices. He was employed in various parts of Italy, particularly at Venice, where he built the palace Foscari. His treatise on Architecture was printed at Venice in 1570, folio; and again at London in 1715, in 3 vols. folio. In 1730, Lord Burlington published some of this architect’s designs, in one volume folio. Palladio used to relate an anecdote of an artist who dedicated the different apartments in a gentleman’s house to several moral virtues, as Chastity, Temperance, and Honesty; so that each guest might be appointed to the room sacred to his favourite virtue. The rich and young widow would be lodged in “Chastity,” the alderman in “Temperance,” and the prime minister in “Honesty,” etc. Palladio died in the year 1580. A monument was erected to his memory at Vicenza, in 1845, the Count G. Velo having bequeathed 100,000 livres for that purpose. It is thus described in _The Builder_ in 1846:--

“The statue of Palladio stands on a pedestal, two storeys in height, with a genius by his side in the act of crowning him. Seated on the first story of the pedestal, against the angles of the upper portion, which is less in size than the lower, are two allegorical figures, one representing Vicenza with a wreath in her left hand, and looking up with pride at the artist; the other Architecture, depicting the history of the art on a scroll, by a representation of a primitive hut, and the Pantheon. Between these two figures on the upper part of the pedestal, is sculptured in bas-relief the baths of Caracalla, to express that it was by the study of the antique monuments that Palladio formed himself.

“At the foot of the whole is a sarcophagus, in imitation of that of Agrippa, containing the remains of the artist.

“The monument stands within an octagon chapel in the new public cemetery of the city, and is the work of M. Fabris, a sculptor of Vicenza. The material is Carrara marble.”

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_JACQUES CALLOT’S ETCHINGS._

“Etching is the writing by which the artist conveys his thoughts. With etching he can allow himself every liberty of touch and fantasy. Etching does not freeze his inspiration by its slow progress: it has all the qualities of a steed at full gallop. Callot, who was so varied, so original, so capricious, so fertile, and so ready, is the greatest master of the art of etching.

“The works of Callot consist of nearly sixteen hundred plates, including those of Israel. We must pass with the rapidity of a bird upon the wing almost all his small religious subjects. Callot, without fantasy, is not himself; it is plain that he grows tired with works where patience is required. The subjects in which he revels in all the luxury, in all the splendour, in all the originality, of his talent, are ‘The Temptation of Saint Anthony,’ ‘The Fair della Madonna Imprunetta,’ ‘The Tortures,’ ‘The Massacre of the Innocents,’ ‘The Misfortunes and Horrors of War,’ and tatterdemalions of every form and every kind, from the hectoring bully to the beggar enveloped in his rags.

“He etched with marvellous facility, having finished on more than one occasion a plate in a single day. His magic hand, and his imagination so rich and so quick, often accomplished a feat of this description in playing, as it were. It often happened,--as, for instance, in his ‘_Livre des Caprices_’ (Book of Caprices), and in his fantastic and grotesque works,--to let his hand follow its own course. While chatting with his friends, he would give utterance to some joke at the same time that he made a stroke, and was himself lost in wonder at having produced a figure. His graver, too, was so fertile in resources, that in all his numerous creations he never repeated himself. He was, however, an artist who treated his art seriously, and who studied incessantly, full of his task, and fond of the glimmer of the midnight lamp. He had the passion of creating tatterdemalions, bullies, and mountebanks, as other men have the passion of play. Whenever he sat up to work, he used to tell his friends that he was going to pass the night in the bosom of his family.”

Jacques Callot was born 1593, and died March, 1635.--_Philosophers and Actresses._

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_THE FEMALE FACE._

Felibien, an eminent French writer of the early part of the 17th century, thus describes his _beau ideal_ of the female ace:--

“The head should be well rounded, and look rather inclining to small than large. The forehead white, smooth, and open: not with the hair growing down too deep upon it, neither flat nor prominent, but like the head, well rounded, and rather small in proportion than large. The hair either bright, black, or brown; not thin, but full and waving, and if it falls in moderate curls the better; the black is particularly useful for setting off the whiteness of the neck and skin. The eyes black, chestnut, or blue, clear, bright, and lively, and rather large in proportion than small. The eyebrows well divided, rather full than thin; semicircular, and broader in the middle than at the ends, of a neat turn, but not formal. The cheeks should not be wide; they should have a degree of plumpness, with the red and white finely blended together, and should look firm and soft. The ear should be rather small than large, well-folded, and with an agreeable tinge of red. The nose should be placed so as to divide the face into two equal parts, of a moderate size, straight, and well squared; though sometimes a little rising in the nose, which is but just perceivable, may give it a very graceful look. The mouth should be small, and the lips not of equal thickness; they should be well turned, small rather than gross, soft even to the eye, and with a living red in them. A truly pretty mouth is like a red rose-bud that is beginning to blow. The teeth should be middle-sized, white, well-ranged, and even. The chin of a moderate size, white, soft, and agreeably rounded. The skin in general should be white, properly tinged with red, with an apparent softness, and a look of thriving health in it.”

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_LONDON IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY._

Sir William Davenant gives a true though ludicrous picture of the habitations of London in his day:--

“Sure,” says the angry critic, “your ancestors contrived your narrow streets in the days of wheelbarrows, before the greater engines, carts, were invented. Is your climate so hot that as you walk you need umbrellas of tiles to intercept the sun? Or are your shambles so empty that you are afraid to take in fresh air, lest it should sharpen your stomachs? Oh, the goodly landscape of Old Fish Street, which, had it not the ill-luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to be your founder’s perspective; and where the garrets (perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity) are so made that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home. Is unanimity of inhabitants in wise cities better expressed than by their coherence and uniformity of buildings, where the street begins, continues, and ends in a like stature and shape? But yours, as if they were raised in a general insurrection, where every man hath a separate design, and differ in all things that can make distinction. There stands one that aims to be a palace, and next another that professes to be a hovel; here a giant, there a dwarf; here slender, there broad; and all most especially different in their faces, size, and bulk. I was about to defy any Londoner who dares pretend there is so much ingenious correspondence in this city, as that he can show me one house like another. Yet your old houses seem to be reverend and formal, being compared to the fantastical works of the moderns, which have more ovals, niches, and angles than are in your custards; and inclosed in pasteboard walls like those of malicious Turks, who, because themselves are not immortal, and cannot for ever dwell where they build, therefore will not be at the charge to provide such lastingness as may entertain their children out of the rain; so slight, so prettily gaudy, that if they could move they would pass for pageants. It is your custom, where men vary after the mode of their habits, to turn the nation fantastical; but where streets continually change fashion you should make haste to chain up the city, for it is certainly mad.”

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_TARDIF, THE FRENCH CONNOISSEUR._