The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-10-27 00:00:00

THE FINE ARTS.

FOrGET DIE NOT.
• CHRISTMAS •eD XV/ TZAR'S rettssr FOX IBM

Ackemann.

Great pains has manifestly been taken to make this ele-
gant souvenir an acceptable remembrance of the giver. It
is ornamented with a number of extpli,itely-tinished en-
gravings, each in appropriate trree as th y are all of them
more or less expressive of those sofer emotions connected
with the prayer of—" Forget me not." But leaving these
emotions, as a lawyer would say, " To all to whom these
presents shall come"—we proceed to extract the following
curious particulars of an engraving; which ranks above all
When as a work of art, and of its engraver, who died in
the prime of life, a victim to his love of fame. It will
readily be perceived that we allude to that masterpiece of
art, " La Madonna di S. Sido Ji 111117,ell,"
" There are some interesting circumstances connected
with the removal of this jewel of art froisi Italy, and its
multiplication by the graver. King Var. DERICIC Attar-o-
res, who united the Polish crown with the electoral dig-
nity, and was a great connoisseur in painting, had long en-
deavoured to secure it for his gallery at Dresden, and ulti-
mately succeeded, at the price of twenty thawand ducats.
All the necessary arrangements were made; a copy was
provided as closely resembling the original as possible ;
the latter was removed in the night front its frame, re-
placed by the copy, sent oil' with the utmost privacy and
despatch, and conveyed over the St. Gothard to Dresden.
It has ever since deservedly occupied the place of honour in
the royal gallery in that c 'pital. Upwards of thirty years
ago, Professor &nu r.z, of' Dresden, engraved a large plate
after this picture, which war. intended to have been intro-
duced into the second volume of the Tabled:Le Jr la Callerie
Royale de Dresde. But though Schulz, an able Pupil of
the celebrated iVire.es, of Paris, exerted his utmost
skill to produce a good plate, the task was too arduous for
his powers, and his engraving was but a mere shadow of
the transcendent original. At length, in Iteo9, liter sett,
an enterprising printseller of Dresden, gave a highly-
gifted young artist of Stuttgart!, FERDINAND MULLER (a
sou and pupil of the celebrated Chevalier Von Muller,
who was for many years considered the first engraver in
Germany, and formed a numerous school), the honourable I,
Commission to engrave a plate for him after this picture.'
This extraordinary artist had already furnished, in his Se.
Jonie, after Domenichitio, the fullest testimony that his
abilities were perfectly adequate to the undertaking. The
preparation', however, for the work, and the drawing for-
wartlike! to him for the purpose. were far from satisfactory.
ii was deemed necessary that Muller should repair to Dres-
den to make studies from the original ; after tehich the price
for engraving it was fixed at Jbur thousand rie-dinars, ex-
clusively of the permission to dedicate the work to the
King, tor which he received one hundred frederic-d'ors,
and one hundred impressions. Muller was, meanwhile,
appointed Professor in the Academy of Arts at Dresden,
with a handsome salary; and here he completed in two
years a performance which will long be considered as a
signal triumph of German art. Butt this triumph cost him
dear ; he obtained immortality, but in the pursuit of it be
lost his reason and his life. By his Hose application dur-
ing the progress of the work, be impaired irrecoverably his
naturally delicate and weakly constitution. To ill health
was soon superaddcd the mortification of having produced a
work from which, as was evident immediately after its com-
pletion, the publisher could not fail to derive a profit incal-
culably greater than his own. The irritable Arnie, mare-
over, thought himself degraded by certain measures a lopttal
in a new organization of the Academy ; and he fell into a
melancholy, which, in spire of the affectionate attentions of
his young and amiable wife, niece to the celebrated sculp-
tor, Chevalier Vox DANNECKEa, of Stutgard, was not to
be removed. It was found necessary to place him in a lu-
natic asylum at Sonnestein, near Pirna. where, after a few
weeks, during which his mind was ;ebony absorbed in vi-
sions of the blessed Virgin and other mystic objects, an
unlucky fall put a period to his life.
" The plate which Muller engraved was printed at Paris,
by the celebrated Rambaud. The price of prints was ori-
ginally live frederick-d'ors, hut ten were soon offere,l fur
them. At length the plate becarucao worn, that the pub-
lisher, with great difficulty and expense, engaged Desnoyer,
a French artist, to retouch it ; and the prints from the re-
touched plate now sell, like those from the original en-
graving, for five fretlerick-urore. Good impressions of
the latter fetch seven or eighty dollars; and for proofs on
India paper, two hundred and upwards have been offered."