# Hampton Court/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V
THE ART COLLECTIONS
I
If Hampton Court had not its unique charms of situation, or its delights of architecture and building, it would still be visited for its art collections. Tapestry, china, pictures are here which the connoisseur spends many an hour over, and which characteristically recall important periods of English taste. The china itself might give excuse for a volume to an enthusiast. Queen Mary II.'s beautiful Delft jars and bowls, and ornaments of all kinds, the relics of her "Delft ware closett," still add harmonious colour to the dark walls of galleries and little chambers. In the Queen's gallery are some charming specimens of the best Delft work, with the royal arms and cypher of William and Mary, the motto "Je maintiendray," and emblems of the three kingdoms. A case in George II.'s private chamber has some exquisite Oriental china. But it is impossible now to linger over this. Two special collections of pictures have been already spoken of—the "Beauties" of Lely and the "Beauties" of Kneller. The other pictures need a further examination. Before them a word may be said about the tapestries, which represent almost every period of the manufacture from ​the days of Wolsey. The glass is also of various dates; a little of the old here and there has escaped the ravages of Puritanism, though all the chapel windows and all those in the hall have perished. Some new glass was put in in 1847, of which perhaps the less said the better, save that the shields in the windows in the great hall trace the descent of each of Henry VIII.'s wives from Edward I.
II
Of the decorative memorials of the Tudor age that now remain, the tapestries are the most important and the most conspicuous. Embroideries, the work of the hands of queens and fair ladies, have passed away: they have been mentioned in another connection. One further word, however, may be allowed here. Embroidered curtains were made, with a curious and pleasing reverence, to veil pictures which might seem incongruous with a scene of revelry. Beside the embroideries hung rich arras and tapestries. Skelton's bitter satire on Wolsey speaks of—
   "Hanging about their wailes
   Clothes of golde and palles,
   Arras of ryche arraye,
   Fresh as floures in Maye."
​Eight rooms, said Giustiniani, must be crossed before audience of the great Cardinal could be obtained—the way can still be traced, though doors are now here and there closed—"and they are all hung with tapestry, which is changed once a week." And Du Bellay, who came with old Anne de Montmorency, enthusiastically declares that "the very bed-chambers had hangings of wonderful value, and every place did glitter with innumerable vessels of gold and silver. There were two hundred and fourscore beds, the furniture to most of them being silk, and all for the entertainment of strangers only." One remembers Cavendish's proud description of the occasion when Du Bellay was entertained, and can thus compare the foreigner's impressions with the statements of the gentleman of the household.
Wolsey indeed, as Mr. Law has said, had a passion for tapestry: just as a century later the ambassadors and political agents of the English King ransacked Europe, and even the far East, for books and manuscripts for Laud, the great bibliophile, so now the churchman at the head of affairs set his master's envoys to work to collect tapestry and arras whereever it could be obtained. At home it was the same. Sir Richard Gresham was directed to measure eighteen rooms, and to buy hangings for them at over a ​thousand marks. In December 1522 he bought a hundred and thirty-two pieces, to decorate the tower and great gate-house, with the story of Esther, of Samuel, of Tobit, of Moses, of Tobias, our Lady, and so forth. The inventory of Wolsey's goods shows the enormous number of hangings that he had obtained. Some of the smaller pieces may be seen now set against the gallery in the great hall, worked with the arms of Wolsey and of York.
The quantity of tapestry collected by Wolsey was so enormous that a description of it here would be impossible. Attention therefore may be directed only to those pieces which still remain in the Palace. The most important are in the great hall and in the adjoining "great watching chamber." The latter is the more ancient. There are decorative strips with Henry VIII.'s arms, the Tudor badges, and the like. Beside these there are three sets of remarkably beautiful work, still wonderfully well preserved, and of the best age of Renaissance art. Of the first I must be content to quote Mr. Ernest Law's description.
"In the foreground is a female figure kneeling, and offering a chalice"—but it certainly is not a chalice; it is much more like a cake-dish—"to a man standing opposite to her, who appears to be admiring it, but refuses to accept it from her. By her side is an elderly lady conducting her forward, presenting her to the man, and a number of other people looking on. ​Behind, on a raised dais, are seated three queens with sceptres, and behind them is an open gallery, through the windows of which numerous persons are surveying the scene. Below, to the right and left, are many others, some in conversation or dalliance, and some playing on lutes and other instruments."
Many suggestions rise to the mind, but none gives a wholly satisfactory explanation. Yet, like "what song the sirens sung, or the name that Achilles bore when he was among the women," we may hope, with Sir Thomas Browne, that the secret is not past all reasonable hope of discovery. Perhaps it is but a variety of the story of the choice of Hercules; the young lady offers pleasure, the elder wisdom, and the Fates look on to decide the young man's career. Next stand three delightful examples of old Flemish work, dated circa 1470; three designs they are, out of a set of six, it is said, illustrating Petrarch's triumph of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Divinity. Death, Fame, and Time stand here in triumph; they have been here since Wolsey's day, nor is there trace in the inventories of 1568 and 1649 of any other of the series. The official description of these three extremely interesting pieces is the best that can be obtained.
1. Ye. Triumph of Fate or Death
This piece (which hangs to the left of the round bay window) portrays the Triumph over Sensuality of Chastity, who in her turn is assailed by the Fates, and ultimately subdued by them.
Group of Chimneys in Clock Court
​ Left-hand side.—Above is the legend:—
   Combienque . I'omme . soit . chaste. tout . pudique
   Les. Seurs . fatalles .par . leur . loy . autentique, Tranchent . les . nerfs . et . filletz . De .la . bie,
   a. cela . la. mott. tous. les . bibans . amobie.
On a car, drawn by four unicorns, is seated CHASTETE, attended by her maidens, who walk behind and at the side, carrying palms, while three angels suspend a veil above her head. On the far side the three Destinies, labelled atropos, lachesis, and cloto, and riding on bulls, are seen attacking her, Atropos holding the shears in her left hand and with her right striking Chastity on the breast with her fatal dart. On the front part of the car, at the feet of Chastity, is a naked boy with his arms bound, representing Cupid; and below is a figure labelled VENVS being trampled under foot by the unicorns which draw the car, and on the backs of which angels are seated bearing lilies emblematic of Purity. In the foreground,on this side of the car, is LVCRECE, bearing a long pillar, with her train held up by a youth, BONVOLONTE, who offers her the dagger with which she destroyed herself after her violation by Tarquin. On the other side is a man on horseback labelled CHIPIONLAFICAN (that is, Scipion l'Africain).
Right-handside.—Above is the legend:—
   Le. Chaste. au. fort. plus sainement. peult . bibre,
   Dui . se. trcutie . de . grans. bices. Delibre;
   Mais. a . la. fin. il. ny . a . roy . ne . pape
   Grant . ne . petit . qui . de. ses . las . eschappe.
Here the three Fatal Ladies are represented in a gorgeous triumphal car, drawn by four bulls, richly caparisoned and ringed at the nose. In the centre enthroned aloft is ATROPOS, with her right hand resting on a skull and her left holding the shears and slitting the thin-spun thread of life, which COLOTO, on her left-hand side, is spinning from the distaff, and LACHESIS, on her right, is twining. At their feet lies Chastity, captive and powerless. A tablet on the car bears the verse:—
   CLOTO . COLVM. BAIVLAT . NET. LACHESIS . ATROPOS . OCCAT .
​On this side of the car is a warrior on foot, grasping in his right hand a javelin inscribed GREVANCE, and bearing on his left shoulder two clubs, PERESECVCION and CONSOMACION. On the farther side is a crowd of figures being knocked down and crushed by the relentless progress of the car of Fate. Underneath the wheels and the bulls' feet lie many prostrate forms, which are being trampled on; and among them may be distinguished a king in his crown and robes, a burgher, a knight in his helmet, another king, and a pope with the triple tiara and cross. Preceding the car is an armed figure, COVRONS, brandishing in his right hand a javelin, labelled MALHEVR, and carrying over his left shoulder a club, labelled FORTITVDO. There is a duplicate of this piece, with slight varieties,under the Minstrel Gallery.
2. Ye Triumph of Renown.
In this piece (which covers the south wall of the room near the bay window) is shown the overthrow of Destiny or Death by Fame or Renown.
Left-hand side.—Above is the legend:—
   La. Mort. moro . tout, . mais. clere. Renomee,
   Sur. mort . triumphe . et . ta . tient . Deprime
   Dessoubs . ses . pieds, . mais . apres. Ses . effors
   Fame . suscite . les. haults . fais. de . gens . mors.
Here we see again the car of Fate, with the same motto on it as before, but LACHESIS and CLOTO are lying prostrate under the wheels; and ATROPOS is tottering from her throne, stunned by the blast of the trumpet of Fame, which RENOMEE is sounding in her ears. All around the car, in answer to the summons of Renown, throng a host of figures, labelled with the names of departed heroes, such as ROI PRIAM, PARIS, HERCVLES, MENELA, ALEXANDER, SALATINO.
Right-handside.—Above is the legend:—
   Dui . par . Nirtu. ont . meritee. gloire,
   Du' . apres . leur . Mort . ne . leurs. fais. Soit. memoire,
   lnclite . fame . neust . jamais . congnoisance
   De. Letheus . le . grant . lac. n'oubliance.
​The same incident in another aspect is continued here. RENOMMEE, represented as a very beautiful winged female figure with a trumpet, is now standing on a magnificent car, drawn by four elephants, and captive at her feet appears ATROPOS seated. Attendant on her are a crowd of heroes on foot and on horseback, one of whom with an imperial crown is intended for Julius Cæsar. Others are labelled TORQVAT, CATHON, MARTIAS, PO'PEE LE GRANT, FABIRVS MAXIMVS.
3. Ye Triumph of Time.
Finally,there is portrayed in this piece, which hangs opposite the last on the north wall, the ultimate triumph of Time over Renown or Fame.
Left-hand side.—Above is the legend:—
   Duotque . fame . indite . et . honoree Apres . la . Mort .soit. ne. longue . Duree
   Clere. et . iupsant . nwantmoins . tout . se .passe Tout. soblie. par . temps . et . longues. passe.
The car of RENOMME is again shown here, but it is now turned in the opposite direction, and both the elephants that draw it, and the surrounding throng on horseback and on foot, appear to be in flight before some overmastering influence. Above this part of the picture are shown the signs of the Zodiac—Gemini and Cancer—and the flight of the fleeting hours, represented as female figures.
Right-handside.—Above is the legend:—
   Longucment . bibre . que . t'aura . prouffite, Duant . tu. Seras . es . lateires . geete De . ce. biel . temps . que. tout .ronge. ct . affine. Et. Dure . apres . que . fame . meurt. ct . fine.
The car of Time is here shown drawn by four winged horses. Renown is seated in front submissive at the feet of Time, represented as an old man with a flowing beard, crutches, and wings. Over all this are more fleeting hours, and the sun in a full blaze of splendour in the sign of the Lion.
​Below, in the centre of this piece, is a scroll with the motto in hopeless dog-Latin:—
   Temporibus . fulcor . quantumlibet .inclita . fama.
   Ipsa . me . clauserunt . tempore. sera . piam.
   Quid . prodest . hirisse . diu . cum . fortiter. ebo.
   Aboiot . in. latebris . jam. me . tempus. edax.
Two points especially invite attention. The classical and the literary interests are here combined in a manner eminently characteristic of the Renaissance. There is the ostentation of antique learning, the sense of design and unity of composition which is obtained from the study of classic models in literature and art. And besides this there is the curious similarity in idea, and even here and there in detail, to the magnificent "Triumph of Julius Cæsar" by Mantegna, which Charles I. bought and placed so appropriately at Hampton Court.
The third series consists of the three pieces which are now hung on the west side of the room. They are also of old Flemish manufacture. They represent the warfare of the Seven Cardinal Virtues with the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Blessed Trinity in judgment, with Peace, Mercy, Truth, and Justice standing before. Pride, Gluttony, Acedia, Anger, Envy, Luxury, Covetousness, all mounted on strange beasts, are attacked by Elope. Latin legends explain each scene. The ideas are of a piece with those of old moralities, which, it may be, were often played in the hall adjoining the room where these tapestries now hang. These are probably the sets which are mentioned ​in the inventory of Cromwell's goods as hanging in the Paradise-room. The points chiefly noticeable in all are the merits of the designs and the formality of the execution. The stiffness of the figures is characteristic of Flemish work, and there is an ignoring of perspective, which may be intentional, and is not always unpleasing.
In the Horn-room, which opens from the "Great Watching-chamber," a room originally used for the serving of dishes to the high table in the hall, with which it also communicates, are other pieces of tapestry—the story of Æneas, and an allegorical piece of which it is difficult to identify the subject.
In the great hall itself are copies of the Triumph of Fate, and two subjects from the history of Hercules—the taming of the steeds of Diomed, and his death. The tapestries under the gallery are valuable as illustrations of contemporary costume, and in some cases the faces are beautifully worked, reminding one of the best work on fifteenth century vestments that have come down to us. In date they stand between those of the Great Watching-chamber and the story of Abraham in the hall. Of the greatest treasure of all, the story of Abraham, only eight of the ten original designs now remain at Hampton Court. These have been hung in the great hall for the last half-century. They are believed to have been designed by Bernhard van Orlay court-painter to the ​Regent of the Netherlands, and executed between 1530 and 1541. Evelyn speaks of them as "designed by Raphael," under whom Van Orlay is supposed to have studied. The clearness and a certain simplicity in the designs may be said to show the influence of the great Umbrian. They are proved by marks to have been manufactured at Brussels. Their continuous connection with Hampton Court is traceable from the time of Henry VIII., in the inventory of whose possessions they are mentioned with the exact measurements, as "Tenne pieces of new arras of the Historie of Abraham." They are mentioned again by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar in 1613, and when the property of Charles I. was valued in 1649, were estimated at, £10 a yard—in all £8260. They were taken for Cromwell's own use, and were seen at Hampton Court by Evelyn in 1662. This was the period of the greatest value of tapestry. James I. and Charles I. were both very fond of it, and generously supported the manufacture at ​Mortlake. In 1625 Charles owed £6000 for three suits of gold tapestry made for him, and the whole of the arras and tapestry hangings of the royal palace fetched ,£30,000 when they were bought for Cromwell.
Of all the tapestry of the sixteenth century that still remains in England, the "History of Abraham" is incomparably the most rich and the most beautiful. Each subject is enclosed in an elaborate border, in which the ideas of the story are introduced, and set in a fine canopy and scroll-work.
The first subject represents the departure of Abraham from his country, the farewells of his servants, while he kneels in prayer to God, Who from a cloud bids him go forth. The second contains the birth and circumcision of Isaac and the expulsion of Hagar. In the third, Eliezer is swearing to find a wife for Isaac from his father's kindred, and costly stuffs are being packed for him in quaint boxes, while the camels wait without. In the fourth, Sarah is restored by Pharaoh with rich gifts. The fifth (which, again, is earlier than the second and third) shows the Three Men promising Abraham a son. In the sixth Abraham buys the field of Ephron. In the seventh Lot and Abraham separate, dividing the land; and in the last Abraham prepares to sacrifice Isaac.
These magnificent pieces of tapestry are remarkable alike for the clearness and boldness of the designs, and ​for the beauty and richness of the colours. Of the work itself, its combination of dignity with decorative effect, it can only be said that nothing like it has been produced till in our own day Mr. William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones have given us "The Epiphany."
The ground of the borders, nearly two feet wide, is worked entirely in gold. In richness indeed the tapestries are unsurpassed. Of such Spenser may well have thought when he wrote—
   "For round about the walls yclothed were With goodly arras of great maiesty,
   Woven with gold and silk so close and nere,
   That the rich metalllurked privily,
   As faining to be hid from envious eye."
A competent authority has even styled them "the finest ancient tapestries in existence."
III
From what remains of Henry's and Wolsey's tapestries, we can well imagine the magnificence of the Palace when Cavendish described it. This gorgeousness was maintained under Elizabeth. She delighted in tapestry as well as in needlework. Her "two presence-chambers shone with tapestry of gold and silver, and silk of various colours; her bed was covered with costly coverlets of silk, wrought in various ​patterns by the needle, and she had many 'cushions,' movable articles of furniture of various shapes, answering to our large family of tabourets and ottomans, embroidered with gold and silver thread."
Prince Otto of Hessen in 1611 made notes of many of the beautiful curios of the Virgin Queen and her successor, and among them he names several pieces of tapestry, some of which have now disappeared. Many of them were probably sold, all were certainly valued in 1649. The list of "goods viewed and appraised at Hampton Court in the custody of William Smithsbie, Esq., wardrobe-keeper, October 5th, 1649," is in the British Museum.
Some of the hangings were purchased by Mazarin, but most of the furniture and tapestries passed into the possession of Cromwell, and much was brought back or recovered at the Restoration. Evelyn, as well as Mandeslo and other travellers, mentions the tapestries with admiration during Charles II.'s reign. Other pieces are mentioned as existing under William III. The latest addition to the tapestries was made in George I.'s reign. Seven pieces now hang in the Queen's Gallery. These are from designs of Charles le Brun, and represent scenes from the life of ​Alexander the Great. They were bought by Cadogan, but it is not clear whether they were made at Brussels or at the Gobelin factory. They are a contrast to the older work, but they have a certain richness and decorative effect, and are certainly extremely fine examples of the eighteenth century tapestries, and admirably in keeping with their surroundings.
Of other work of needle and loom the Palace still contains several specimens, all worthy of minute inspection, such as the canopy that stood over the throne of William III., the bed of Queen Anne,—a beautiful composition of silk velvet elaborately worked in orange and crimson on a white ground,—and the bed of Queen Charlotte,—a charming specimen of the work of Mrs. Pawsey, a lady who started a school of needlework at Aylesbury, and was employed by the Queen. Her work in this case, lilac satin with wreaths of flowers in crewels touched up with silk, is extraordinarily delicate, and in the best style of Louis Seize.
Other furniture, chairs of William III.'s day, the very pattern of those the illustrator of the collected edition of Pope (1751) drew the ladies sitting on when they take coffee in the "Rape of the Lock," settees, cabinets, andirons, firebacks, all of great interest, still remain in the Palace, but over these we may not linger.
The great feature of the art collections is of course the pictures. These have been so long neglected that they seem especially to demand an attentive consideration.
IV
Scott when he went to Hampton Court said in 1828 very truly of the pictures as a whole, "They are not very excellent, but they are curious, which is as interesting except to connoisseurs." It is impossible here to consider all the pictures of note in any detail. They will, therefore, best be treated in connection with their historical associations. Thus viewed, they fall into four groups. First, are the pictures and portraits which belonged to, or which illustrate, the period of the Tudor sovereigns. Next are the remains of the collection formed by Charles I. Thirdly, the pictures of the age of William III. and of Anne form a group by themselves. And, lastly, come the portraits of the Georgian period. Besides these are the two special collections of "Beauties" already noticed. The ceilings may be rapidly dismissed. Nobody now admires Verrio's "sprawling saints," or is impressed by Thornhill's ridiculous apotheoses. As decorations, the farther off they are seen the better; as works of art, they plead to be forgotten. Very different is the ceiling in the "Confessionary," which recalls, says Sir J. C. Robinson, "the celebrated ceilings of the apartments of Isabella Gonzaga in the old palace at Mantua . . . and might almost be supposed to have been the work of the same artists." The panel pictures in the same room are, says the same eminent authority, ​"exactly the kind of productions which would have proceeded from the hands of good but not pre-eminent masters originally trained in the severe Roman school, and chiefly accustomed to work in tempera or fresco." They represent five subjects in the Passion.
V
The first to attract attention is the very problematical Zuccaro, an enormous picture of the giant porter of Elizabeth. It is dated 1580, and is a grim, unlovely thing: a curiosity, and as such it was retained by Cromwell. We then pass through many rooms before we come on any of this period. At length, in the large "Queen's Audience Chamber," we find a number of curious scenes commemorating the chief events of Henry VIII.'s reign. They are of very doubtful authorship, some showing the influence of Holbein, some merely the stiffest early Flemish work. They are certainly contemporary glorifications of the King's victories in diplomacy and war. In one he meets Maximilian outside Terouanne on August 9, 1513, resplendent in gold armour and vizor, as the histories tell. In another he stands on the deck of the Great Harry, ready to sail to France. This is not without ​skill in the painting of the great ship, with her sails set, leaving the harbour. The "Battle of the Spurs" again presents the King in his gold armour. The "Field of the Cloth of Gold" itself displays the extraordinary minuteness in which the court painters of the age delighted. It is like a newspaper report or a photograph. Every historical incident is crowded into the canvas, and thus as a picture of the social order the work is invaluable. There is spirit, too, in the charming insouciance with which riders hurry hither and thither, kings meet, or stately ladies proceed in impressive line. To the "school of Holbein" may be ascribed, with the laxity of catalogue-makers, the stiff composition, rich with gold in canopy and decorative work, No. 340. It is strangely mis-labelled as it now stands. The catalogue of Charles I. says, "A long piece painted with gold, where King Henry VIII. sits with his Queen, and his son Prince Edward on the right side, and his two daughters, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, standing at each side, and a fool at the left side in the door, with a jackanapes on his shoulder, and on the other side a waiting-woman." The Queen is probably Catherine Parr; on the right is Elizabeth, on the left Mary. The fool is the famous Will Somers, and the woman is probably "Jane the fool." The picture has special interest here because the background, through archways, shows the old Tudor garden of Hampton Court, exactly as the accounts describe it, with painted wooden rails and the king and queen beasts. The portrait of Henry ​himself is small, and of the nature of illumination work, though it is eminently a portrait and a characteristic one.
More interesting and powerful portraits of the King are in other rooms. In the King's Gallery, made originally for the Raffaelle cartoons, is a remarkably fine picture. This was obtained by Charles I. from Lord Arundel, and is one of the best portraits of the King. His beard is still small and thin, his hair is cropped short, his eyes dark and penetrating, his expression coarse and sinister. It seems to be certain that Holbein had no hand in it, nor does it seem probable from the style that it is by Janet. A much smaller picture of the King as an older man is in the same room, and is almost equally interesting.
There are many other pictures of Henry VIII.'s period, nearly all worth examination. There is the Francis I. and his wife Eleanor of Spain, painted apparently by "Maistre Ambroise" at the time of their wedding. There are various contemporary battle scenes, such as the Pavia (No. 605), which belonged to Henry VIII. It is an interesting composition as an historical sketch of the scene, in which Francis I. is prominent. The extremely fine portrait of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, is worth a careful examination. It is clear, impressive, telling, and the red dress is very effective, relieved only by the white at the sleeves and breast, and by the gold chain and gold on the shoes and the scabbard. There is a ​charming drawing at Windsor of Surrey by Holbein, in which his prim, round face is looking full at the spectator. Here he looks to the right, and has his left hand on his sword-hilt. Experts will not admit the picture to be Holbein's, but it is impossible to deny its beauty and charm. More striking still is the "John Reskimeer of Cornwall" (No. 610), given to Charles I. and admittedly by Holbein. He wears a black cap falling slightly over the right eye. The left side of his face is turned towards the spectator. He has a long yellow or reddish beard and a pale face. It is a masterly picture.
Other Holbeins may be mentioned here, though they also came from Charles I.'s collection. The splendid portrait of Froben the great Bale printer, solid, capable, humorous; the inferior Erasmus; the Elizabeth Lady Vaux, are all well worth consideration—all interesting and significant portraits.
There is a very doubtful portrait of Queen Mary I., No. 640. This is more probably Christina, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Her husband, Philip II. (No. 633), in a "black cassock lined with white fur," as Charles I.'s catalogue says, painted probably at the time of his marriage, is very probably the work of the great Fleming, Sir Antonio More, Holbein's successor as the chief portrait-painter of the English court. The reign of Elizabeth can be well studied here—at least ​there are striking portraits of herself and of her great rival, and of a number of ladies and gentlemen of her court. Sir Antonio More has some other fine examples here of his rapid, impressive work. Walsingham, Dudley, Howard of Effingham, and other worthies, are here in their habits as they lived; and the pale, meagre face of Francis II., Mary of Scots' first husband. One of Queen Mary herself, by Francois Clouet, now removed to Windsor, a charming picture, is, like the most authentic portraits—as, for instance, that in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, formerly belonging to Dr. Wellesley—not too beautiful for belief. She is here in white, with cap and veil, and curly reddish hair fringing the face. Another portrait remains as No. 560. It is a copy by Mytens of an original now in the National Portrait Gallery and signed "P. Oudry." This is not so pleasing, and certainly has no better claims to be considered authentic. Her mother-in-law, Margaret, Countess of Lennox (No. 559), is probably another of Mytens's copies.
Tudor Gable, South Front
​which more fitly might be called the dress of an Arcadian shepherdess. It is all in the style of the literary rusticity of the day. The Queen, with her fantastic dress worked with birds and flowers, her open bosom, and her high head-dress, worked like the gown, stands in a woodland scene with her hand on a stag decked with flowers. Perhaps she is "Dian chaste and fair," or a "passionate shepherdess." Certainly she is very sentimental, and the picture is loaded with mottoes more or less intelligible. Verses, perhaps her own, which seem to contain an allusion to one of her love affairs, complete the mystery of the picture:—
   "The restles swallow fits my restles minde,
   In still revivinge, still renewinge wronges;
   Her just complaintes of cruelty unkinde
   Are all the musique that my life prolonges.
   With pensive thoughtes my weepinge stagg I crowne,
   Whose melancholy tears my cares expresse;
   Hes teares in sylence, and my sighes unknowne,
   Are all the physicke that my harmes redresse.
   My onely hope was in this goodly tree,
   Which I did plant in love, bringe up in care,
   But all in vaine, for now to late I see
   The shales be mine, the kernels others are.
   My musique may be plaintes, my physique teares,
   If this be all the fruite my love-tree beares."
It is a picture which should be looked at again and again. There is no other which so happily conveys the idea of Elizabeth's coquetry and quaintness with her shrewd, direct common sense.
​In No. 616, which again may be by Zuccaro, she is dressed in black and white with a high ruff, her hair in small rows of curls, with a fan in her small, white hand. In No. 635 she is every inch a queen, with the "crown imperiall" on her head, the sceptre in her right hand, and the orb in her left. Two ladies stand behind her. In front are Juno, Pallas, and Venus, who all show surprise, admiration, and submission to this mightier divinity.
The frame bears an inscription which shows the spirit of the composition:—
   Juno potens sceptris et mentis acumine Pallas;
   Et roseo Veneris fulget in ore decus;
   Adfuit Elizabeth, Juno perculsa refugit;
   Obstupuit Pallas, erubuitque Venus."
Her dress is magnificent, her face far more pleasing and gracious than in other works. The artist was Lucas da Heere, who painted the picture in 1569, when the Queen was thirty-six.
A portrait of her in old age completes the list. Here she is in white, with a red silk head-dress and a close ruff. This is believed to be the work of Marcus Gheerardt—Garrard, as the English called him—the elder. This is dignified, astute, weary, and an admirable completion of the cycle of portraits, which shows her in prim youth, artificial womanhood, queenly dignity, and cunning old age.
With Elizabeth the Tudor portraits end. There ​are many other pictures I have not mentioned, and there is much from the artist's point of view that is illuminative and suggestive. The Antonio Mores, the Reskimeer and Froben of Holbein, the Surrey, and the portraits of Elizabeth herself, are as important in art as in history.
VI
From the Tudor pictures we pass naturally to the great collection of Charles I., of which so many examples still remain at Hampton Court. This is fitly introduced by the few pictures which belong to the time of James I. These are mostly portraits, and most of them have been already mentioned in their historical setting. A record of Charles's madcap visit to Madrid is the Philip IV., and so also the Elizabeth of Bourbon his wife, both poor enough in the eyes of those who saw the magnificent Spanish Exhibition of 1895-96. They were probably sent to England sometime after Charles's return. But the large group of the family of the Duke of Buckingham, himself a great collector, painted by Honthorst within three months of the Duke's murder, and Cornelius Janssen's charming full-face of him, with Garter robes, with a melting eye and somewhat of a simper; Mirevelt's charming boy, Prince Rupert, and a Count Gondomar, which may be by Mytens, stand out conspicuously ​from the portraits of the period of Charles and his father.
Mytens is an artist who can be studied in England nowhere so satisfactorily as at Hampton Court. "Sincere and skilful, but cold and prosaic," an eminent critic calls him; but an examination of the thirteen examples here may serve to justify a somewhat higher estimate of his power. There is perhaps no picture so striking as the Laud which was so long unknown, but the portrait of James, second Marquis of Hamilton, is extremely interesting; and the Duke of Richmond and Lennox (No. 155) is equally attractive. The Count Mansfeldt is not so agreeable a work, but certainly merits the praise of being "sincere."
Next to Mytens, we look naturally at Hampton Court to Vandyke for illustrations of the reign of Charles I. First and foremost is, of course, the replica of the great Windsor picture of the King himself on his horse, with M. Saint Antoine at his bridle. It is a magnificent piece of dignity and colour, not, like so much that came from his studio, entirely of his own hand. A contrast is the voluptuous Mrs. Lemon, Venetian in its richness, and a step, as has been said, towards the still more sensuous presentments of Lely. The "prince of court painters" he was in a sense somewhat different to that in which Mr. Pater ​gave the title to the delightful Antoine Watteau, and it is in such a place as Hampton Court that we should look to find a gallery from his hand. But the dispersion of Charles's collection scattered the portraits that once were here, and there remain only (besides the charming sketch of Madame de Cante Croix, of which the finished picture is at Windsor), sacred or mythological compositions, not always in his happiest style. The most important is the Cupid and Psyche, a late work, unfinished, with a singular charm.
   "Rare artisan, whose pencil moves
   Not our delights alone, but loves!
   From out thy shop of beauty we
   Slaves return, that entered free.
   The heedless lover does not know
   Whose eyes they are that wound him so,
   But, confounded with thy art,
   Inquires her name that has his heart."
Pity 'tis that there are not here some of those fair ladies of whom Waller is thinking, and who walked through the trim gardens of Hampton Court when Charles the First was King.
Rubens we should name if there were much here of his to be observed; but there is only the very doubtful Sir Theodore Mayerne (No. 711), and his composition, a great, coarse, yet powerful work, of Dian with nymphs and satyrs, with game by Snyders.
There are many other artists of this age here represented with whom we would gladly linger—Gentileschi; his daughter Artemisia, whose bright and vigorous ​portrait of herself at the easel should be studied; Steenwyck the younger, precise and graceful artist; Honthorst, too, with his night-pieces, the Joseph and Mary (No. 383), and "Singing by lamplight" (No. 393), and that fine portrait of the unhappy Elizabeth of Bohemia (No. 128), worthy to stand beside Merevelt's charming presentment of her little son. This last picture, Mr. Law shows, was left to Charles II. (then Prince of Wales), by Sir Henry Wotton, in the words, "I leave to the most hopeful prince the picture of the elected and crowned Queen of Bohemia, his aunt, of clear and resplendent virtues through the clouds of her fortune." There are also the Poelembergs, and especially that of the children of Elizabeth of Bohemia; Van Bassen, Charles and his wife dining in public, which, though the scene is probably Whitehall, may give an idea of their life at Hampton Court; and many more.
"Old Stone" is here with a fine copy of Titian's Cornaro family (No. 444). William Dobson, the kindly "English Vandyck," has here a "portrait of two gentlemen," and a charming half-length of himself and his wife.
From the portraits that belong to the historical setting of Charles's life we pass naturally to the collection which he formed. Here it is well to include other pictures of the same masters not necessarily collected by him. Charles was the only king who set himself to make a fine gallery at Hampton Court, and when we consider the masterpieces he collected, we may well put with them other works added at other times.
​Charles it was who has enabled us at Hampton Court to study not a few of the great painters in a special and illuminative way. The galleries as we see them now are crowded, it is true, with a number of inferior pictures, and yet we feel that we are in the midst of a collection which could have been founded by no petty princeling, but by an English king, and a king who was an artist too. There is really a considerable number of pictures of the first class. Arranged together in a room like the "Tribuna" at Florence, they would be even more impressive than now, when we have to search for them among many inferior things. But when they are found, the great Tintorettos, the "Shepherd" of Giorgione, the Andrea Odoni of Lotto, the "Adam and Eve" of Mabuse, even Vandyke's "Cupid and Psyche," are enough to give fame to any great collection. And besides these, and the many charming works of lesser men, there is one mightv ruin from which we cannot withhold the tribute of a mingled admiration and regret.
VII
Of all the great acquisitions of Charles I., there was none greater than the nine pictures of Andrea Mantegna, the "Triumph of Julius Cæsar," and this is the one work of supreme merit which remains to us at Hampton Court from the magnificent collection the King made there. The picture-dealer Daniel Nys was employed from the beginning of ​Charles's reign, or even before it, to purchase for him in Italy the works of the great masters. A special agent, Nicholas Lanier, was sent to join him. In 1627-29 were carried on the negotiations which ended in the purchase from Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of much of his famous collection, of which the most precious portion was Mantegna's masterpiece. Nys bid against Richelieu, against Marie de' Medici, and her kinsman the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Month by month he was able to announce new successes—Correggios, Titians, Raffaelles—some of them sent home by Lanier, and at length, at the beginning of 1629, he secured, with "the Duke's collection of marbles and certain other pictures," for the price of £10,500, the great "Triumph" itself, "a thing rare and unique and its value past estimation."
The pictures from the date of their arrival in England have never left Hampton Court. They were valued for sale by the agents of the Commonwealth at £1000, but Cromwell had them reserved for himself. It may well be, as has been said, that their austere majesty appealed to him. William III. arranged them in the long "Queen's Gallery," now hung with the tapestries from Charles le Brun's designs which were bought for George I. Within the present reign they have been moved to the Communication Gallery, which connects the apartments of the King with those of the Queen.
We see them now under almost every conceivable disadvantage. They are arranged, it is true, in ​order, and on one wall, so that the scheme may be followed, and none of the effect which that stately march is intended to give is lost. But in summer at least, the sunshine, or the reflection, on the glass, makes it difficult to observe them clearly or continuously. It is rarely, indeed, that the whole of any picture can be seen at one time. No arrangement of position that I can discover, or of the blinds that can be drawn down the great windows, makes much difference. We can only see them imperfectly and piecemeal. It is bad enough to see them; but worse remains behind. They have been patched, restored, repainted, treated with every indignity that can be imagined. "In the entire series there are perhaps not a dozen square inches in which Mantegna's hand is still visible," is the judgment of one of the latest and most competent critics. They are rather, says another, "a memory than a work still extant; the question not being which parts of the composition are due to the restorer, but which, if any, reveal to the careful observer any traces of Mantegna's own handling."
This is true enough, it must be admitted; and from the point of view of the connoisseur, who judges a picture according to the standard which his knowledge of its artist compels him to set up, it is fatal. But for the historian, and for the general observer, the "Triumph" retains an attraction which ​it would be impossible to over-estimate. It represents the strength of the Renaissance, and that strange feature of it, as it seems to us—though it is not so rare a feature as some would suppose—its austerity. In descriptions of luxurious despots, sensuous popes, pedantic scholars, we are ready to forget the ideal which the best minds of the great revival of learning set before them. If Greece appealed to the imagination of the fifteenth century from the side of its free delight in life, its sense of the beauty of form, of the essential dignity of man as man, of the width and the satisfying power of any human interest, yet the solemnity, the justice, the impressive authority of Rome was little less attractive. The Roman ideal of political life was quoted even when it was not followed; the stateliness, the majesty, the formal pomp of old Roman society set the fashion for Italian courts, and gave a tone to many a poet and many a painter. And the greatest of all those whom Rome influenced was Andrea Mantegna. Few men knew more of its history, no one caught so much of its spirit. The story of the influences which made him so great a master will bear telling again. Squarcione was the founder of the school of learned painters which grew up under the shadow of the University of Padua, and gave itself to the study of ancient sculpture, and to the realisation of its principles in painting. Mantegna, his pupil (1431-1506), was the greatest master of the school. Two characteristics of his work are those, so far as we ​know it, of the whole school,—his sense of form, "plastic rather than pictorial," and his use of classical ornaments and designs in the details of his pictures. No one like him has ever turned a statue into a picture. The same austerity of pose, the absence of all triviality, the subordination of colour, of all the outer world of nature, to the recognition of the essential dignity of man, are in Mantegna's painting—the reminiscences of what we see in the greatest works of the classical sculptors. Thus his pictures have an indefinable sense about them of purity and restraint, and at the same time they show humanity, thus simple and severe, as the master of terrestrial things. Not the luxury, but the severity of Rome appealed to him,
   The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
   That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,
   And hangs on Dian's temple."
Mantegna was much more than a painter, though as an artist he was supreme in technical excellence. He was a historian and scholar, and it might almost be said an architect. He took, as in the pictures at Hampton Court, or the "Triumph of Scipio" at the National Gallery, a well-defined but single subject from ancient history, and he poured into it all the knowledge that an antiquary could acquire. Statues, busts, medallions, coins, inscriptions, reliefs, the decorations of ancient columns and houses, the dignity of great buildings, the minuteness of detail and the sweep of great design—all these in the remains of ​the old world had come to form and to mature his style. A simple austere man in idea, if not always in his life, which had something of the luxury as well as the pride of old Rome, he was himself a collector of antiquities, and it was his boast to have assimilated the ideas of the great nameless artists among whose works he delighted to live. "Good ancient statues" Vasari tells us that he believed "were more perfect and displayed more beauty in the different parts than is shown by nature."
In such a painter it might seem that the design was of supreme importance, and this at least is still preserved to us in the "Triumph of Cæsar." It is the extraordinary strength of the whole scheme, the overpowering sense of mastery that it has— the power that belongs to it, so that as you look long the whole scene seems to move, and you hear the steady tramp of the soldiers, and the majestic appeal of the trumpets as the mighty line sweeps on—it is its unique completeness of impression that makes this great work still one of the greatest of the world. In the painting, much if not everything is gone: the sweet faces of Mantegna, with their chaste simplicity, are bedizened with red cheeks and artificial smirks. The beautiful expression, the pathos and tenderness, which he knew so well how to impart (as in his Madonna and Babe in the National Gallery), have disappeared, but the perfection of form remains.
The pictures appear to have been painted between 1485 and 1492 for the Mantuan Duke Ludovico ​Gonzaga, in the hands of whose descendants they remained till war and wrack and the coming end of the dynasty induced the sale to Charles I. Thus they have been practically in the hands only of two States from the day they were painted until now; and but for William III. and Laguerre they might have been worthy of so clear a descent.
They are worthy still of a detailed explanation, from the proud trumpeters who lead the procession to the pale Cæsar in his car, with palm branch and sceptre, and crowned by Victory with a laurel wreath. But only a brief word must be said here. The first picture contains the heralds, trumpeters with "tables" hanging from their trumpets, soldiers bearing S.P.Q.R., leaders of the triumph, with censers aflame, and a bust of Roma Victrix held high above their heads. In the second are the spoils of temples, antiquities such as Mantegna loved to paint, statues, busts, drawn on cars or carried in the arms of the crowd. The splendid triumphal car has not been repainted. One tablet is inscribed Imp. Julio Cæsari ob Galliam devict. militari potentia triumphus decrectus invidia spreta superata. Next come soldiers and youths turning to each other as they walk, with trophies, urns, and vases. Among those in this third picture a strong young man, with breastplate and short white breeches, rosy-faced (but with the colour of La Guerre), and confident, arrests attention. Behind come the oxen decked for the sacrifice, a flaxen-haired lad leading with his right hand on one of the oxen, whose unhappy simper reveals ​the later hand. More trumpets herald the fifth picture, in which torches and candelabra are held aloft, and urns carried, while mighty elephants, richly caparisoned, close the scene. In the sixth, men carry vases on a stretcher, and behind them others bear helmets, shields, and breastplates, the arms of the vanquished. In nothing is Mantegna's mastery of detail and his appreciation of chaste classical design seen more clearly than in the armour which is the chief feature of this picture. In the seventh division are the captives, stately women, senators, children, with a wonderful dignity and resignation upon their faces. Behind are musicians and singers, soldiers with eagles and the emblems of the Roman state; and last of all, in a car which still preserves much of the beauty of the master's touch, comes the solemn Julius proud and unmoved, fit representative of the state which conquered the world. Before him a man holds up a medallion with the words Veni, Vidi, Vici; behind are men with incense-burners, and around are boys with branches of laurel.
No doubt the impressiveness of the whole picture is due not a little to the size. The small studies in grisaille at Vienna, undoubtedly not from Mantegna's hand, but designs for the woodcuts executed by Andrea Andreani in 1599, are clear and exquisite themselves as a sculptured frieze, but have not the dignity and solemn stateliness of this great work; nor has the "Triumph of Scipio" in the National Gallery, ​masterpiece though it is of historical accuracy and skilful arrangement. There are other copies of the "Triumph of Cæsar," but I have not seen them. The Vienna work, in the clearness with which every scene can be traced and every design understood, and the Hampton Court pictures for their size and magnificence, may well represent to us what Mantegna meant in what was probably his greatest memorial of old Rome. The severity, the power of it all, is what impresses: the virile domination, the invincible air of mastery. The soldiers may keep tune to the soft music of flutes, but we see that they have come from sterner music. They remind one irresistibly of "Coriolanus" or of Handel's marches and songs of triumph. One would think that Charles I., keenest of Shakespeare's lovers, read his "Julius Cæsar" in the light of this picture. The stately Romans who triumph in it are each of them men such as the Brutus who loved not Cæsar less but Rome more, or the Coriolanus to whom Rome's honour and his own pride were one; and Handel may surely have looked on it when he wrote "See the conquering hero comes."
How differently the classical age appeals to different men may be seen if we turn from the magnificent stateliness of the fifth of these pictures to Rubens' imitation of it in the National Gallery. To the Fleming the glory of triumph means luxury and joy: to the staid master of the Paduan school it is stern simplicity even in its greatest success.
VIII
The "Triumph of Cæsar" remains unique. Many other Mantuan acquisitions may be traced in the dispersion of Charles's collection, but few are still at Hampton Court. Perhaps the charming S. Catherine reading, a Correggio of exquisite grace, may have been one which Lanier brought from Mantua for Charles, but it is by no means certain.
We may turn also to the splendid and significant Francia (No. 307), which it seems certain came from Mantua. It is a baptism, greatly resembling that at Dresden, which is dated 1509. In the background are the crowds on the margin of the stream; the Lord stands with hands in the attitude of prayer; S. John with humble, attentive face bends to take the water from the shallow stream in which He stands. Not far from this is the picture called a "portrait of Giovanni Bellini by himself" (No. 317), which is almost certainly neither of nor by Bellini. Mr. Phillips cannot "with confidence ascribe a name" to it: another writer says it is certainly by Bissolo. In any case, it is a characteristic piece of fifteenth-century Venetian art, showing still, with all its damage, a fine feeling and individuality.
Chimneys in Court
​Jerome Bosch—a "fantastic representation of Hell." This was certainly in Charles's collection; it was given him by the Earl of Arundel.
Charles's gallery reached its climax of splendour in its representation of the sixteenth-century painters. The man with a black cap (No. 710) cannot sustain its claim to be a Raffaelle, and the gallery is robbed by South Kensington of the majestic cartoons; but his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano, is happily represented by his two equestrian Cæsars (Nos. 257 and 290). There are several others—such as 247, "An Ancient Sacrifice," in the archæological style that was his forte—and a copy, very charming, of the Madonna della Quercia, by his hand.
There is (No. 64) a very good version of Lionardo's Infant Christ with S. John, which Mr. Phillips ascribes to Marco d'Oggionno; and another edition of a Lionardo, "Portrait of a Woman with Flowers" (No. 61), which some have declared to be a Luini.
Among the Milanese pictures are the S. Catherine with a palm-branch (No. 259), by Giampetrino, and the Salome (No. 241) which Mr. Claude Phillips says is a copy from Cesare da Sesto.
When we turn to the Venetians we find the true splendour of the gallery. In spite of warring critics and the severe judgment of Mr. Claude Phillips, it ​is difficult to resist the feeling that in the Shepherd, in white shirt and grey cloak, holding a flute in his hand, we have a genuine and exquisite Giorgione.
It is a picture full of a real and unspoiled delight in life, pastoral, human, simple, pure. The sympathetic writer whose charming brochure should be in the hand of every visitor to the gallery, says: "The face is so radiantly beautiful, that even retouching and blackening have not been able to hide the fine oval, the exquisite proportions, the lovely brow, the warm eyes, the sweet mouth, the soft waving hair, and the easy poise of the head."
This enthusiastic writer, following Mr. Bernhard Berenson, will allow no other picture in England to be by the hand of Giorgione, dismissing not only the National Gallery "Knight" as a "poor copy" of the figure in the famous altarpiece that Mr. Ruskin has so loftily praised, but also all the others at Hampton Court—60 and 183, as by Dosso Dossi, 87 "from the workshop of Bonifazio," 158 as of the school of Paris Bordone, and the rest as "an insult to the name of any master."
"The Concert" (No. 144), a rather sly damsel singing, and three male faces, which Mr. Berenson will not admit to be a Lotto, still less a Giorgione, is assigned to the little-known Morto da Feltre. Its chief interest "lies in its mystery."
From Giorgione we pass to Titian, whose magnificent ​though injured portrait—not Alessandro de' Medici—(No. 149) is one of his finest works. With this may be compared the No. 113, indeed a noble face nobly rendered, which is by 'Mary Logan' considered to be a Titian, but which has been identified with a portrait declared in Charles I.'s catalogue to be by Tintoretto. It is a more personal picture, and more advanced in style. Copies or works of his school which are worth consideration are the pretty Holy Family with S. Bridget (No. 79), an exquisite group, of which the original is at Madrid.
Mr. Berenson's new and elaborate bookhas given a fresh interest to the study of Lorenzo Lotto. He has traced his artistic origin, his history, his development, and the surviving examples of his work, with the patience and the acuteness of a true critic. He places first among the pictures of this master at Hampton Court No. 114, bust of a young man—a full face, personal and expressive, painted when he was still under the influence of Alvise Vivarini. It is certainly one of the finest of his portraits, the pose so striking, the face so firm and unconventional. Interesting though this is, it bears no comparison with the magnificent Andrea Odoni, which is not fully sympathetic perhaps, but in its technical qualities is superb. Many minor masters, who felt the same influence as Lotto, here claim attention—Savoldo, Palma Vecchio (a fine Madonna and Saints, No. 115), and a "Shepherd's Offering" (No. 163), Cariani (No. 135, ​the "Shepherd's Family"); and not far from these may be ranked the fine Pordenone (a man in a red girdle, No. 92) and the rather clumsy Bernardino Licino family (No. 104). Paris Bordone too can be studied here in his love of beauty untouched by high thought (No. 118).
Tintoretto, the great, single-minded, powerful, proud genius who painted the Nine Muses (No. 77), shows here his mastery of colour and of form. They are playing musical instruments, turning to each other in delight, and in poses which show the master's supremacy in modelling. The centre of the picture is in a flood of light. "Queen Esther before Ahasuerus" (No. 69), stately, vivid, hangs in the same room. Portraits, too, from his hand are here, Nos. 120, 78, 91—all fine examples of his power of rich and impressive presentation.
Nor must we forget Bassano, in whose work the gallery is rich, or that graceful and decorative artist, Andrea Schiavone, whose charming "Tobias and the Angel" is No.88; and his large "Judgment of Midas" (No. 175) in the King's Drawing-Room. Palma the younger, too, has the "Expulsion of Heresy," from King Charles's collection (No. 159)—angels at the word of three doctors of the Church driving downwards the heresiarchs—and the "Prometheus chained to a Rock." Minor pictures crowd round us, all deserving some attention, such as the number of portraits by or related to A. Solano; the twelve scenes, so fresh and brilliant, from the story of ​Psyche, by L. Giordano; to the broad decorative pictures of Ricci in the audience-chamber.
Dosso Dossi has the "S. William taking off his Armour" (No. 183), a fine, pathetic, impressive half-length, with flashes of colour across the steel; and the fine and characteristic Holy Family (No. 97), and the quieter portrait No. 80. They are not unworthy examples of the greatest master of the Ferrarese school, a colourist who in his way is fitly compared to Titian.
Correggio was an artist whom Charles particularly affected; and here we have his early Holy Family, suggestive of Dosso, and with an exquisite charm in the face of the Madonna (No. 276); and beside it (No. 281) is the late S. Catherine. These are, of course, but small examples of Charles's collection, and of a master who can be studied most satisfactorily in the great gallery of his native Parma. But the taste for Correggio, with all his modernness, is a special one, and in such a gallery as that at Hampton Court two specimens are enough. In the Holy Family the artificiality and affectation so prominent in his later works are but slight. Parmegianino, his exaggeration, may be seen in Nos. 174 and 306, the latter a charming picture. Allori's "Judith" (No. 99), I think a copy, is impressive.
Italy furnished by far the largest proportion of Charles's collection, but there still remain at Hampton Court some significant examples of the art of other nations. The fine, cold, "red-faced man, without a beard" (No. 589) is a genuine Albrecht Dürer, with ​much of his impressive and solemn feeling about it. Remigius van Leemput preserved for Charles II. Holbein's "Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, with Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour," a fine little copy of the Holbein fresco destroyed at Whitehall. Mabuse's Adam and Eve, ugly and ungainly enough though one sometimes thinks it, is famous as a characteristic blending of the Flemish feeling and the ideal Italian Renaissance. Solomon de Bray's Family Group (No. 66) is a notable specimen of a rare artist. The two heads by Rembrandt (Nos. 381, 382) will not easily be forgotten. Among the Dutch pictures, though it is probably not from Charles I.'s collection, is a striking Crucifixion triptych by Lucas van Leiden.
It is ill to hurry over a field so vast, but enough has been said to show that the gallery, of which Charles's collection is the nucleus, is worthy of a far more minute inspection than it is the custom to give it. It is still an honourable memorial of the connoisseur-king who gave it its greatest glories.
IX
The next broad division of the Hampton Court pictures is formed by the Georgian age. Charles II. had his collection, it is true. Indeed, the Dutch States made him a fine present in the collection of Van Regust, a collector who had bought much from the gallery of Charles I. James II.added some Vandevelde ​sea-fights, William III. some glorifications of himself. The Hanoverian additions are of a different kind. Severe critics might say that the Hampton Court galleries have been regarded as the rubbish-heap of the royal palaces. But this would be a short-sighted judgment. Much that is of very considerable historical interest has been added to the galleries within the last century. There are, in the first place, a few interesting portraits which have no special English connection. Two of these cannot fail to attract attention.
No. 429 is a charming replica of Drouais' portrait of Madame de Pompadour, now in the possession of Lord Rosebery. This has been very unfairly criticised. Artificial and mincing no doubt it is, but so was its subject. The colour is exquisitely pure, the tone exquisite; an undefinable charm lingers on the face, so sweet, so prettily set in its quiet mobcap. The dress of figured brocade, the tambour frame in front, add to the decorative effect of a very charming picture.
Another equally interesting portrait is that by Battoni of the reforming Pope Benedict XIV., a happy presentment of a keen and kindly face. It is pleasant to have at Hampton Court so good a memorial of so enlightened and beneficent a man. There are many other portraits of foreign statesmen and kings, among them a pretty Louis XIV. when young, in armour, ascribed to Mignard.
English royalties, of course, claim attention. There is a not unpleasing portrait of Queen Caroline, George II.'s "fat Venus." George himself appears in four ​examples, as Prince of Wales and as King, in the Garter robes. There is a good Kneller George I. George II.'s three elder daughters, so well known to us from Lord Hervey's Memoirs, are No. 514, painted by Maingaud, artificial and unattractive, and more prettily the Princesses Emily and Caroline, in No. 517. Near them are their brothers, William Duke of Gloucester (if it be he) and Frederick Prince of Wales, the latter by Vanloo. The whole family of "Prince Fred" is also represented in No. 361, with a portrait of their father, then dead, on the wall. George III. appears several times in the galleries, notably among the collection of West's pictures, and in the picture of his review of the Tenth Hussars by the "attractively superficial" Sir William Beechey, most prolific of all English painters. There are several portraits of Queen Charlotte and her children, all interesting, and some pretty ones of some of the Princes when young. On the whole, the Hanoverian royal family could hardly be more completely studied than at Hampton Court.
The prominent personages of the time are also well represented. There are two portraits by Gainsborough of Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, tutor to George III., a kind, good man, whose face gave no great opportunity to the artist. His Dr. Fischer (No. 352) is far more significant, a speaking likeness indeed, full of vivacity and genius. Next to it is the charming Colonel St. Leger, in red uniform, so happy, light, sympathetic, and yet so expressive of the fact that there is little to express. There are several Hoppners, too, but, strange ​to say, not a single Reynolds. Perhaps the most interesting of the Hoppners is the portrait of the first Marquis of Hastings, better known as Lord Moira (No. 358), the friend of George IV., who atoned for political failures in England by a brilliant governor-generalship in India. He is in uniform, the tight, white breeches set off by the red coat—a little, monkey-faced man. The words in which Scott recorded his death are an admirable comment on the picture: "Poor old Honour and Glory dead—once Lord Moira, more lately Lord Hastings. He was a man of very considerable talents, but had an overmastering degree of vanity of the grossest kind. It followed, of course, that he was gullible. In fact, the propensity was like a ring in his nose into which any rogue might put a string. He had a high reputation for war, but it was after the pettifogging hostilities in America, where he had done some clever things. He died, having the credit, or rather having had the credit, to leave more debt than any man since Cæsar's time. £1,200,000 is said to be the least. There was a time that I knew him well, and regretted the foibles which mingled with his character, so as to make his noble qualities sometimes questionable, sometimes ridiculous."
There is a pleasing portrait of the literary lady Mrs. Delany by Opie (No. 375), and there are many more of the same period.
But most characteristic of the age of George III. is the collection of the pictures of Benjamin West ​in Queen Anne's Drawing-Room. This artist, so greatly belauded in his day, and of so singular a history, can nowhere be studied, for his defects and his not inconspicuous merits, so well as here.
The first of American artists, he was born at Springfield, Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 1738; he studied in Rome, became an honorary member of the Academies of Parma, Bologna, and Florence, and in London not only competed as a portrait painter and in classical scenes with the great artists of his day, but successfully introduced a revolution in historical portraiture. His classical and his Scriptural pictures at Hampton Court show him at his weakest, when he does not even rise to be "the king of mediocrity." They are utterly tame and cold, and profoundly dull. Stilted, antiquarian, stiff, academic, he endeavoured what artists such as Wilhelm Kaulbach and Charles le Brun had in their different ways achieved with more success—a spiritless representation of the past according to the methods of the cinque-centisti. His portraits are certainly much better. There is a quaint one of Queen Charlotte with her thirteen children, quite small, seen as it were in a vision; a quite pretty picture of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, and another of the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent. George III. (No. 318) in military uniform, with a view of Coxheath Camp in the background, and Lords Amherst and Lothian in attendance, is well worth attention. This plain, sober, straightforward picture, thoroughly natural ​and human, prepares us for his greatest work, "The Death of General Wolfe" (No. 320). This is the highwater mark of his style. He had dared to paint military scenes without a cloak of classicalism. He dressed his soldiers as they lived. It was a veritable revolution, and it may be said to have founded a whole modern school of art. Though they have long ago cast off his stiffness, his classical poses, his methodical arrangement, our modern battle-painters may trace their origin to Benjamin West. And "The Death of General Wolfe" is really a triumph of its kind. Careful as is the grouping, it is not too obviously artificial; skilful as is the lighting of the picture, it is not unnatural. And the scene is told with sober sincerity, honesty, and with a genuine pathos.
What a furore it created we all know, from the popularity of the engravings of it, and the host of imitations which the next fifty years produced. For half a century there was not a prominent military death which was not painted in a composition more or less closely modelled on West's chef d'œuvre. From Copley, also an American, to the artists who painted Nelson's battles, the line continues. It is hardly even now extinct.
"The Death of Wolfe" is a picture easy enough to sneer at, but in historical interest, in sympathy, in composition, and in colour, it is a work which is worthy of a full and respectful attention. The "West Room" at Hampton Court is not the least interesting or characteristic in historic attractions of the Palace.
​So we may bid farewell to the pictures. The whole collection is an eminent example of the merits and defects of the eighteenth century galleries. If it is not, nor ever has been, a rubbish-heap, there is a vast deal of rubbish in it. Pictures crowd the walls which were bought because they were popular, but which were not meant to "live." But with all its defects, the collection is that of a king; and not many a palace anywhere can show so many striking pictures.
To have opened it to the public is a service for which the British people, students as well as sightseers, owe to Queen Victoria a debt of very genuine gratitude.
* ↑ Page 58.
* ↑ "It is interesting to find in an old catalogue of Hampton Court how pictures of sacred subjects were thus decently veiled in the profaner moments of court gaieties"(see inventory of Henry VIII.'s goods and 1 Edward VI., Harl. 1419, quoted by Felix Summerly (the late Sir Henry Cole),in his "Complete Handbook to Hampton Court").
* ↑ "Venetian Relation," ii.314.
* ↑ Cf. above,p. 43.
* ↑ Guide-book, p. 95.
* ↑ "Three old persons in episcopal habits with crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands."
* ↑ There is a picture by him, "Venus mourning over Adonis," in the Hampton Court Gallery, No. 576.
* ↑ "There is much in the style of Raphaelin the treatment of the subjects. One boy in particular appears to have stepped from the cartoon of the Beautiful Gate. Bernard van Orlay, who was a successful pupil of Raffaelle, was in the employment of Charles V., and was highly esteemed by that monarch. A peculiarity in his style of painting assimilated strongly to the richness of these hangings, and he very usually painted his subjects on a gilt ground. He was also employed by the Prince of Nassau to paint cartoons for tapestry. He has been frequently called Bernard of Brussels. It is more probable that the two B.'s worked on the edge belong to the director of the loom than to the designer, or they might seem to confirm the idea that these tapestries came from the Imperial Court.'"—Jesse, "A Summer's Day at Hampton Court," p. 25.
* ↑ Cf. Countess of Wilton's "Art of Needlework."
* ↑ Surely this should be the second.
* ↑ Miss Lambert, "Handbook of Needlework," 1846.
* ↑ The Countess of Wilton's "Art of Needlework,"p. 292. This was published in 1846. We may thankfully welcome the disappearance of the "tabouret" and the exile of the "ottoman," relics of the "early Victorian period."
* ↑ Harleian MSS. 4898, f. 238.
* ↑ Cf. Pyne's "Royal Residences," p. 71.
* ↑ The "Inventory of Cromwell's Goods" is printed entire by Mr. Law in an appendix to his "History of Hampton Court," vol. ii.
* ↑ See above, p. 10.
* ↑ No. 563.
* ↑ No. 606.
* ↑ No. 603.
* ↑ No. 597.
* ↑ No. 591. Of this the drawing is at Windsor, and was engraved by Bartolozzi, as was the Reskimeer.
* ↑ Formerly No. 631.
* ↑ Is this "the Queen of Scotland with the Dolphin of Fraunce, of Gennett's doeinge," in the list drawn up for Charles when Prince of Wales?
* ↑ Above, p. 173.
* ↑ No. 619.
* ↑ I see Mr. Claude Phillips calls it "well known and particularly tiresome." But it is historically of great interest.
* ↑ Mr. Claude Phillips, "The Picture Gallery of Charles I.," p. 117.
* ↑ It was exhibited at the Laudian Exhibition, January 1895, and is in a private collection.
* ↑ Mary Logan, "The Italian Pictures at Hampton Court."
* ↑ C. Phillips, "The Picture Gallery of Charles I.," p. 69.
* ↑ Only eight of the drawings are now in the Vienna Gallery.
* ↑ No. 753
* ↑ He refers to the Vienna Gallery', No. 20, for the original: I did not discover this in a visit in April 1896.
* ↑ "Picture Gallery of Charles I.," p. 88: "The execution too flimsy and superficial, the loose style of painting too late for him."
* ↑ No. 101.
* ↑ Mary Logan, "The Italian Pictures at Hampton Court," p. 13.
* ↑ "Lorenzo Lotto," preface
* ↑ "Lorenzo Lotto," Putnam, 1896.
* ↑ Diary, December 22, 1826.