Daily American telegraph., 1852-01-10
From the New York Evening Post.
THE PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS.

THE PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS. +.
A correspondence took place not long since,
between Joseph E. Bloomfield and Washington
Irving, on the subject of the different portraits
of Columbus. Mr.. Bloomfeld's attention was
directed to the subject by his having been for
some years a resident of the south of Spain,
and become familiar with the portraits pur-
porting to be the ikenesses Of the great dis
coverer.
Mr.. Irving has been applied to for leave to
publish his letters, which embrace the result of
his own researches on this subject, and contain
many particulars Of much interest At his re-
quest, the correspondence has been returned to
him, and in the Following letter he has re-cast
with some additions, the information and OBJ
servations contained in his more hasty notes to
Mr. Bloomfield
To William C. Bryant, Esq.
My DEAR SIR: In consequence of the inter-
est expressed by you as to a recent correspond
ence with Mr.. Joseph +. Bloomfield, of New
Mexico, New York, on some points relative to
Columbus, have thrown the purport of my re-
plies to that gentleman into something of a con-
nected form
Mr. Bloomfield was desirous of my opinion
of portrait of Columbus existing in Lonja, or
Royal Exchange, at Seville and which he says
was the only one acknowledged in Spain as a
true likeness. In reply, | have stated that
know of no portrait extant which is positively
known to be authentic. The one in question,
according to his account of it, is full length,
and that of y person from thirty to thirty-fve
years of age armed in mail, and wearing a full
white ruff. Now, Columbus by the time his
discoveries had made him subject for such a
poinf;prr oIy -, Tbo
ruff, too, was not an article of dress in Spain
until after his death. IL was a Flemish fashion,
brought, | believe, from Flanders to Spain in
the time of Charles ". who did not arrive in
the Peninsula until 1916, ten years after the
death of Columbus. The portrait may have
been one of Diego Columbus, the heir and sue
cessor of the discoyerer, and who, like him, was
denominated the Admiral"
Various portraits of Columbus have appear
ed from time to time in Italy, not one resem-
bling the others, and all differing essentially
from the description given by Fernando of his
father Theodore de Bry, in his AMERICA, pub
lished in the sixteenth century, gave an en-
craving of one in his possession, which he pre-
tended had been stolen from a saloon of the
Council of the Indies, and sold in the Neither
lands, where it fell into his hands. The same
has been copied in an eulogium of Columbus
by the Marquis of Durazzo printed by Bodoni
and in a life of the discoverer published in
Milan by the Chevalier Bossi. This pretended
portrait also differs entirely from the graphic
description given by Fernando Columbus Of
his father According to this, his visage was
long, and neither full nor meager; the cheek
bones rather high; his nose aquiline his eyes
light gray his complexion fair and high-color-
ed (acceSo di UiUo colore In his youth his hair
I.,N1 L.. a -.
of age it was quite lohite. This minute descrip-
ton | consider the touchstone by which all the
pretended portraits of him should be tried. It
agrees with accounts given of him by Las Casas
and other contemporaries.
Peschiera, sculptor employed in Genoa to
make bust of him for monument erected
to his memory in that city in 1921, discarded
all existing portraits, rs either spurious or
doubtful, and guided himself by the descrip-
tions have cited.
While was in Madrid, in 1896 Don Mar
tin Fernandez de Navarrete, President of the
Royal Academy of History, published a litho-
graphed picture copy of an engraved portrait
of Columbus, which NE found in an old Italian
work containing hkenesses of distinguished
persons. He and the Duke of Veraguas (the
descendant of Columbus) placed confidence in
it. because other portraits in the same work
were known to be correct. | doubted its au-
thenticity. Ii did not agree sufficiently with
the description before mentioned, and the hair
especially, in the notice which accompanied it
in the Italian work, was said to be black. Still,
published a copy of the engraving some years
since, in an abridged edition of my life of the
discoverer.
While was in Paris, in 1s45, Mons. Jomard,
the learned Principal of the Royal (now Ma
tional) Library, had the kindness to send me
lthographic copy of a portrait in oil, recent
ly discovered. The original bore, in one cor
ner of the canvass, the inscription, Christoporus
Columbus. The countenance was venerable
and dignifed, and agreed, more than any had
seen, with the description given by Fernando
Columbus. Around the neck, however, was
the Flemish ruff, which pointed out as an
anachronism. Mr.. Jomard endeavored to ac-
count for it by supposing the portrait to have
been made up toward the year 1880, by some
scholar Of Titan, from some design or sketch
taken during the lifetime of Columbus, and
that the artist may have decked it out in the
costume in vogue at the time he painted it.
This is very possible. Such a custom as vamp-
ing up new portraits from old ones seems to
have been adopted in the time of Charles v,
when there were painters of merit about the
court.
In 1919, Juan de, Borgona, Spanish artist,
executed q whole series of portraits of the pri-
mates of Spain, for the chapter-room of the
Cathedral of Toledo; some of them from life,
some from rude originals, and some purely inn
aginary. Some degree of license of the kind
may have been INDUCED in producing this al
legged portrait Of Columbus. AS it is evidently