Chapter VIII: Part II (1)

By a strange coincidence those paintings in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita to which the entries in Alesso’s ‘Ricordi, Libro B,’ refer, have alone been preserved of all the frescoes once in the chapel, with the exception of some fragments of the lunettes on the lateral walls. The last but one of these entries records the purchase of cinnabar for the wings of the seraphim on the soffit of the arch opening into the ‘Crociera.’[51] The first entry in ‘Libro B’ is dated March 9, 1470-1; but according to an abstract of an entry in ‘Libro A,’ Alesso ‘received the commission to paint the “Cappella Maggiore” of Santa Trinita from Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, for 200 gold ducats, on July 1, 1471, and undertook to finish the work within the period of five to seven years.’[52] The latter date, no doubt, was that of the execution of the ‘writing,’ subscribed by the hand of Misser Bongianni, which Alesso held, and to which he refers in the ‘ricordo’ on the first page of ‘Libro B.’ In the interval between these two dates the painter began the cartoons for the figures of the prophets and the other ornaments of the vault. On April 28, 1471, he bought ‘16 quires of coarse paper (_carta da straccia_) in royal folio, at 5 soldi the quire, for making the “spolverizzi” of the prophets and the other “spolverizzi” that occur in the said vault.’ The ‘spolverizzi’ properly were the outlines pounced upon the plaster, by means of the pricked cartoon; but here, by a figure of speech, Alesso clearly intends the cartoons themselves. The more usual method of transferring a cartoon was to trace the outlines, by means of a metal style, on to the fresh plaster, as Vasari recommends.[53] Pricked cartoons seem to have been more commonly employed in the case of embroideries and ‘drappi.’[54] ¶ Having in the meantime purchased certain colours for the work, Alesso, at length, on August 29, 1471, paid various sums for moving the boxes containing his colours, etc., into chapel, and for the purchase of brushes and pipkins in preparation for the actual painting of the vault. There are two entries of that date: the first records that he bought ‘from Bernardino di Ventura, the pencil-maker, 58 pencils of minever, between coarse and fine, one with another, great and small,’ costing, lire 1 soldi 12; the second, that he spent, ‘between new pipkins and small pots, and hogs’-hair and pack thread for making pencils of hogs’-hair, and for the carriage of chests and trestles for the work of painting the said chapel, lire 3 soldi 5.’ Alesso, however, does not appear to have proceeded very far with the actual painting of the vault until the following spring; for on April 12, 1472, he records that he bought ‘five pounds of azzurro della Magnia (namely, biadetto) for making the bed under the fine blue, and this I bought from Lorenzo di Piero, the painter, in Borgo Sant’Apostoli, at the price of 5 soldi the ounce.’[55] This ‘biadetto’ was probably identical with the ‘sbiadato’ mentioned by Cennini, in a passage in which he says, that ‘a blue like sbiadato, and very similar to azzurro della Magnia,’ may be made with indigo and white, ‘biacca’ or ‘bianco sangiovanni.’[56] Alesso would seem to have painted _a fresco_ the blue backgrounds behind the figures of the prophets on the vault with this ‘biadetto,’ using it as a ‘bed’ for the fine azzurro della Magnia, which he afterward applied _a secco_.[57] It cost one-fifth, or even less, of the genuine azzurro della Magnia, and, no doubt, resembled it in colour. The genuine azzurro della Magnia seems to have been not easily obtainable in Florence; and Alesso is generally careful to record how he came by his purchases. On March 7, 1470-1, according to the first entry in ‘Libro B,’ he bought ‘2 pounds 9 ounces of azzurro di Magnia from Cardinale del Bulletta, at the price of 26 soldi the ounce’; and on the 12th of the same month, 4 pounds 2½ ounces, at 33 soldi the ounce. On April 31, 1471, he bought 1 pound 7 ounces, ‘from a German, in a bladder,’ at 31 soldi the ounce. ‘On 25 day of September, 1472,’ records Alesso, ‘I bought 2 pounds of azzurro di Magnia from Giovanni d’Andrea, glazier, at the price of 25 soldi the ounce; he said it belonged to a gossip of his, a courier, who brought it from Venice: the said Giovanni wanted 4 soldi to go drinking with.’ This Giovanni d’Andrea was the glazier who, in partnership with Il Lastra, had executed the window of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, from Alesso’s design. Finally, on January 13, 1472-3, Alesso bought 2 pounds 10 ounces, ‘from a Pole,’ at 20 soldi the ounce; ‘a clear, beautiful, finely-ground blue,’ he adds with satisfaction. At that time the painter was about to begin the lunettes on the lateral walls of the chapel. ¶ Cennini calls azzurro della Magnia ‘a natural colour that is found in and around silver lodes.’ ‘Much,’ he adds, ‘is obtained in Germany [La Magnia, whence its name], and also in the country about Siena.’[58] Milanesi, in the notes to his edition of Cennini, says that this blue was an oxide of cobalt; but Mrs. Herringham, with more probability, identifies the colour with blue carbonate of copper, commonly called blue verditer: in the same way, she identifies ‘verde azzurro,’ which Cennini says was made artificially from ‘azzurro della Magnia,’ with green verditer, which is also a carbonate of copper.[59] Alesso records in ‘Libro B,’ that, on March 20, 1470-1, he bought 6 pounds of ‘verde azzurro,’ at 14 soldi the ounce. ¶ It is worthy of remark that in a work of the importance of these frescoes, executed for so wealthy a patron as Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi, Alesso should not have used ultramarine, but a blue which cost but a twentieth part of that ‘noble, beautiful, and most perfect beyond all colours.’[60] According to the entries cited above, Alesso bought his azzurro della Magnia at prices varying from 20 soldi to 33 soldi the ounce.

Few other colours are specified by name in these ‘Ricordi.’ On May 24, 1471, Alesso purchased 4 pounds 5 ounces of yellow, namely, ‘arzicha,’ at 13 soldi the ounce. Cennini calls ‘arzica’ a colour chemically produced and little used, but more at Florence than elsewhere. He adds that it perishes on exposure to the air, and is not good for walls, but mixed with a little azzurro della Magnia and giallorino it makes a beautiful green.[61] Mrs. Herringham suggests that ‘arzica’ may be massicot, called azarcon in Spain.[62] ¶ On September 1, 1471, Alesso bought 5 ounces of fine lake at 14 soldi the ounce. The colour was probably used for the purple robe of the David. Lastly, on September 14, 1472, he bought ‘8 ounces of fine cinnabar to make the cherubim of the arch before the said chapel,’ at 2 soldi 8 danari the ounce. This was the vermilion for the wings of the seraphim, which still remain on the soffit on the arch. ¶ By June 1472 the painting of the vault had so far advanced that Alesso began to buy the gold for the ornaments. On June 13 he bought from Domenico, the gold-beater, 1,700 pieces of fine gold ‘laid upon tin-foil,’ for lire 61; on June 15, from Giovanni, the gold-beater, called Il Rosso, 500 pieces, also on foil, for lire 18; on June 23, 4,000 pieces of fine gold, at 3 lire 4 soldi the hundred, from a Genoese; and on June 28, 86 sheets of yellow foil, on which to lay the gold, for lire 8. Lastly, on July 9, 1472, he bought ‘8 pounds of liquid varnish, to apply them upon the vault, namely, the ornaments of fine gold.’ In all this Alesso appears to have followed the method set forth by Cennini, in cap. 99 of his ‘Trattato.’[63] ¶ But one other entry in these ‘Ricordi’ calls for any remark: on July 24, 1471, Alesso ‘bought four pounds of linseed oil at the price of 4 soldi the pound.’ What purpose was this oil intended to serve? Was it for some oil ‘tempera’? Vasari, speaking of these paintings of Santa Trinita, says that ‘Alesso laid them in _a fresco_, and afterwards finished them _a secco_, tempering the colours with yolk of egg, mixed with liquid varnish made over the fire’; he adds that Alesso ‘thought that this tempera would protect the paintings against damp; but it was of so strong a nature that where it has been applied freely the work has in many places flaked away, and so, whereas he thought to have found a rare and most beautiful secret, he remained deceived by his opinion.’[64] Without attempting to discuss the nature of the ‘tempera’ which is here described, I may recall the fact that Domenico Veneziano, who was undoubtedly Alesso’s master, is celebrated by Vasari on account of ‘the new method which he employed of colouring in oil’; and the books of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova record payments for very considerable quantities of linseed oil which that master used for the lost paintings in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Sant’ Egidio.[65] Domenico, no doubt, possessed the secret of some improvement upon the old method of painting in oil on walls, which Cennino Cennini, who describes it at length in the ‘Libro dell’ Arte,’ cap. lxxxix.–cap. xciv., says ‘was much in use among the Germans.’ ¶ Alesso, as I have said, originally undertook, on July 1, 1471, to paint the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita for 200 gold florins, and to finish the work within a period of five to seven years. It was not, however, until January 19, 1496-97, after an interval of more than twenty-five years, that the total amount to be paid him for finished work was estimated by Cosimo Rosselli, Benozzo Gozzoli, Pietro Perugino and Filippino Lippi at 1,000 gold florins.[66] In other words, Alesso had spent upon the work five times the minimum period originally stipulated for its completion, and he was awarded five times the original sum for which he had undertaken to complete the chapel. Two causes appear to have contributed to this delay. The one was that Alesso’s method of laying-in his paintings _a fresco_, and finishing them _a secco_, admitted of endless elaboration, and a consequent expenditure of time, which pure fresco painting did not admit of. The other was, that shortly after receiving the commission for the chapel Alesso appears to have turned his attention to reviving the art of mosaic, which had almost died out in Florence. We first hear of Alesso working in mosaic in 1481, in which year he restored the figures on the façade of San Miniato a Monte.[67] In 1483 he was appointed by the consuls of the Arte de’ Mercanti to restore the mosaics in the tribune of the baptistery of San Giovanni, ‘there being no one, in all the dominion and jurisdiction of Florence, but he, who then understood that art’: in consideration of which the consuls resolved to convey to him, ‘for the term of his natural life, such real property as would yield 30 florins yearly, upon the condition that he bound himself, so long as he lived, to repair and restore the mosaics of San Giovanni.’[68] In accordance with this resolution two houses in the Piazza di San Giovanni, belonging to the Arte de’ Mercanti, were assigned to Alesso on February 26, 1483-4,[69] and by two instruments of the same date, engrossed by the notary, Ser Giovanni di Jacopo de’ Migliorelli, Alesso re-leased the two houses to the persons who were already in possession of them at the date of the assignment. These instruments are printed, for the first time, in the appendix to this article.[70] ¶ The decoration of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, and the restoration of the mosaics in the baptistery of San Giovanni and San Miniato a Monte, appear to have almost entirely engrossed the last thirty years of Alesso’s life. During that time we hear of no work of importance undertaken by him, with the exception of the lost altar-piece of Sant’ Ambrogio, which he began in 1470. Messer Bongianni Gianfigliazzi died on November 7, 1484, and was buried in his chapel at Santa Trinita, long before Alesso had brought its frescoes to a conclusion.[71] The work, however, was continued at the instance of his son, Jacopo Gianfigliazzi; and Stefano Rosselli records in his ‘Sepoltuario Fiorentino,’ that at the time he was writing, c. 1657, the basement of Alesso’s altar-piece in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita bore the inscription: ‘Jacobus Gianfigliazzius Bongiannis Equitis Fil_ius_, sua erga De_um_ Pietate.’[72] ¶ Of the paintings that once decorated the walls of this chapel we possess but some partial and imperfect accounts. Vasari, to whom we chiefly owe the meagre notices which are extant, says that they consisted of ‘stories from the Old Testament.’ Alesso, he says, ‘drew many portraits from the life; and in the story of the aforesaid chapel [of Santa Trinita], in which he represented the Queen of Sheba going to hear the wisdom of Solomon, he drew Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent, who was father of Pope Leo X, and Lorenzo dalla Volpaia, a most excellent master of dials, and a great astrologer.’ ‘In another story which is opposite to this, Alesso drew Luigi Guicciardini the elder, Luca Pitti, Diotisalvi Neroni, Giuliano de’ Medici, father of Pope Clement VII; and next to the stone pilaster [of the arch opening into the church] Gherardo Gianfigliazzi the elder, and Messer Bongianni, knight, wearing a blue habit and a collar round his neck, together with Jacopo and Giovanni of the same family. Near to these last are Filippo Strozzi and Messer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, astrologer.’[73] What the subject of this latter story may have been, we do not now know. According to Giovanni Cinelli, in his edition of the ‘Bellezze di Firenze,’ published in 1677, the other story of the Queen of Sheba was on the left wall of the chapel, ‘dal Corno del Vangelo.’ Cinelli, after quoting this passage from Vasari, adds that ‘in the angle of the choir, on the left side, there is painted a Cain in the act of striking his brother Abel, a figure which is very admirable in its attitude, and which expresses in its countenance the malice and hatred which Cain bore in his heart towards his brother: and it is greatly esteemed by the connoisseurs; so much so, that when the cardinal of the serene house of Este came to Florence and visited this church, he desired to see and consider with attention so fine a painting.’[74]

THE PAINTINGS OF ABRAHAM, NOAH, MOSES, AND DAVID BY ALESSO BALDOVINETTI ON THE VAULT OF THE CAPPELLA MAGGIORE OF SANTA TRINITA AT FLORENCE]

Already, when Vasari wrote in 1568, the frescoes in the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita ‘had begun to flake away in many places.’[75] The last writer to allude to their indifferent condition is Giuseppe Richa, who speaks of them as ‘not a little consumed and spoiled by time.’[76] That was in 1755; five years later, in 1760, Alesso’s ‘stories’ were ruthlessly destroyed or covered with whitewash, and the walls of the chapel decorated with ‘stucchi’ in the taste of the time.[77] During the recent restoration of the church, in 1890-7, the paintings of the four patriarchs on the vault of the chapel, the seraphim on the soffit of the vault, and the fragments of the lunettes on the lateral walls of the chapel, were found under the whitewash, and restored by Signor Dario Chini. [Plate III.] ¶ The vault itself is divided into four triangular compartments by the intersecting ribs of the vault, which spring from the four corbels at the angles of the chapel. In the compartment above the window of the chapel is a seated figure of Noah, in an ample cloak of dark green, worn over an under-dress of a reddish colour. He holds some object which is now undecipherable in his right hand; and beside him, on the left, is placed the ark. ¶ In the compartment above the left wall of the chapel is a seated figure of Abraham clad in a yellow robe lined with green, over an under-dress of vermilion. In his right hand he holds the sacrificial knife, and at his feet kneels his son Isaac, bound and clad in white. In the compartment above the right wall is a seated figure of Moses, holding the two tables of the Law in his hands. The robe, which falls over the knees of the figure, is vermilion in colour, and the underdress appears to have been a dark leaf-green. In the compartment above the arch is a seated figure of David playing upon a psaltery with three sound-holes. He is attired in a purple mantle lined with green, which almost entirely envelops his figure. The purple of this robe is now much perished. All these four figures are relieved against blue backgrounds, broken by rays of gold which appear to proceed from the figures; and all the four compartments are surrounded by borders of fruit and flowers upon a vermilion ground. The ribs of the vault are painted with green foliage intertwined with a running ribbon, and the keystone of the vault is blazoned with the arms of the Gianfigliazzi: or, a lion rampant azure. On the soffit of the arch opening into the chapel is painted, on a blue ground, the series of seraphim with vermilion wings, to which allusion has already been made. ¶ In the lunette on the left wall, immediately below the figure of Abraham, in the vault, are the remains of a ‘story’ of the ‘sacrifice of Isaac.’ In the upper part of the picture, on some rising and rocky ground, Abraham is seen turned towards the right, and kneeling before an altar. This figure is in large part almost obliterated, and the figure of the angel who appears to him in the sky, and that of Isaac upon the altar, can now scarcely be made out. On the right of the painting, however, there may still be seen a tree boldly designed against the sky, recalling certain passages in Alesso’s painting of the Nativity in the atrium of the Annunziata at Florence. The lower part of this lunette has entirely perished. ¶ In the lunette on the opposite wall, below the figure of the patriarch, in the vault, is a ‘story’ of ‘Moses receiving the tables of the Law on Mount Sinai.’ The upper portion of this painting alone remains in a ruined condition. On the top of the mount Moses kneels, turned to the left. The figure is much damaged; and that of God the Father, who appears to him out of the heavens, has almost entirely disappeared. The bare mountain-top is broken by patches of herbage, and around it may still be seen some cypresses, with other foliage. ¶ Below each of these lunettes, on the lateral walls of the chapel, appear to have been two other stories; but the subject of only one of them has been recorded (as I have said) by Vasari, namely, the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, which appears to have been on the left wall of the chapel. The story of Cain killing his brother Abel, recorded by Cinelli, was probably on the altar-wall beside the window, in the left-hand corner. ¶ In the figures on the vault, Alesso attains to a nobility of design, and a largeness of manner, which he does not again reach in any extant work of his. That extreme research for form, which so largely spoils our enjoyment of the altar-piece which he painted for this chapel, does not detract, at all in the same degree, from the severe beauty of these figures; for they possess a charm both of conception and design which is little distinctive of Alesso’s later manner, though akin to a certain grace and sweetness in some of his earliest works. The attitudes of these ‘prophets old’ are very grandly imagined, especially that of the David, who looks up as he touches his psaltery with a gesture that expresses a spiritual ecstasy, with an admirable fineness and reticence. Indeed, these figures are represented with a truth of character, and a refinement of feeling, for which we vainly look in similar works by his more famous, and more obviously gifted, pupil, Domenico Ghirlandaio; such as the vaults of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Maria Novella, and of the Sassetti chapel in Santa Trinita. To judge from these figures of the four patriarchs, the destruction of the ‘stories’ which were below them cannot sufficiently be deplored; the reputation of few Florentine masters depended so largely on a single work as Alesso’s did upon this chapel of the Gianfigliazzi. ¶ One other fragment of the ‘stories’ which once decorated the walls of this chapel has come down to us. Giuseppe Richa, in his ‘Notizie Istoriche delle Chiese Fiorentine,’ after mentioning the various portraits to be found in these paintings, adds: ‘all these figures are named by the writers of the life of Alesso; but they do not allude to [the portrait of] a young man in the angle of the choir, on the epistle side, who is represented in a red habit, with a green cap on his head, and a white handkerchief in his hands; and this is Alesso Baldovinetti, who portrayed himself as he was, when a young man; and he, also, drew there the portrait of Guido Baldovinetti, who was the man most gifted and renowned at that time in his illustrious family.’[78] ¶ Domenico Maria Manni, in the notes to his edition of ‘Baldinucci,’ published a few years after Richa’s work had appeared, cites a certain ‘Memoriale’ of Francesco di Giovanni di Guido Baldovinetti, written in the year 1513. According to this ‘Memoriale’ (from which, no doubt, Richa derived his notice of the portrait in question) Alesso portrayed on the walls of the ‘Cappella Maggiore’ of Santa Trinita, among many other noble citizens, ‘Guido Baldovinetti, and, last of all, himself, wearing a _cioppone_ of faded rose, and a handkerchief in his hand.’[79] Among the pictures which Morelli bequeathed to the Accademia Carrara, at Bergamo, is a fragment of a fresco, No. 23, containing the head of a man. It has been cut to a round measuring 0.23 centm. in diameter. According to an inscription on the back of the painting it is a portrait of Alesso Baldovinetti, painted by himself and taken from an angle of the choir of Santa Trinita in Florence.[80] There can be little doubt that this is the head to which Francesco Baldovinetti referred in his ‘Memoriale,’ and that it was cut from the walls of Santa Trinita when Alesso’s paintings were destroyed in 1760; but whether it is a portrait of the painter is a question which I must not here attempt to discuss.

THE DUTCH EXHIBITION AT THE GUILDHALL

❧ ARTICLE II.--THE MODERN PAINTERS ❧

The collection of works of modern Dutch painters at the Guildhall is much more representative than that of the old masters, and is likely to be a revelation to those visitors who know only the few, and in many cases inadequate, examples of modern Dutch works which have been seen from time to time in London. In only one previous instance, that of the Glasgow exhibition, has such a representative collection of modern Dutch painters been brought together in this country. ¶ The chief interest of the collection is to be found in the works of the three brothers Maris and of Israels, for these painters are the leaders of the school, and the rest, though not without individualities of their own in technique and treatment, are followers. ¶ Joseph Israels is represented at the Guildhall chiefly by works of his later period, which are far better known in England than are the pictures in his earlier manner, which can be studied best at Amsterdam; these latter are distinguished by precision and detail rather than by the subtler and more sympathetic treatment of his mature work. ¶ The largest canvas of Israels shown is The Shipwrecked Fisherman (11), which, though impressive and well balanced, has a certain stagey effect. There are several tricks of technique, such as the parallel clouds and sky, which, however, add not a little strength to the general effect. Far superior to this picture is The Cottage Madonna (14), a vigorous painting of a woman with a child in a characteristically Dutch cottage interior. This fine work can hardly be considered a typical example of Israels, not indeed because it falls short of his other achievements, but rather for the opposite reason. It is a wonderful piece of sympathetic painting, full of feeling and pathos, and without those eccentricities which are apparent in such of his pictures as A Jewish Wedding (95), interesting as being the last picture which he has painted, and therefore reproduced here for this reason, but lacking in the opinion of the present writer the surpassing merits which many claim for it. It has become so much the mode to praise equally all the work of a particular painter or a particular school, that the sense of proportion and the power of discrimination have almost become extinct and criticism has been undermined. No painter of the modern Dutch school is more unequal than Israels, except perhaps Mauve; and one feels that if he has almost risen to the level of a great master in The Cottage Madonna, and perhaps in A Ray of Sunshine (7) and The New Flower (82), there is a particular group of works at the Guildhall which are sustained in estimation by the repute of greater achievements. ¶ The case of Jacob Maris is quite otherwise. The whole of his work is upon essentially legitimate lines, and inspires a feeling that he never produced a picture from a less than worthy motive. His pictures are full of the softness and delicacy of the Dutch atmosphere, and most people would consider it incredible that none of them were painted out-of-doors. Yet the present writer has been assured by one of Maris’s intimate friends that this was the case; when a particular view or picture struck him he was accustomed to stand with his hands in his pockets, and the picture was painted entirely from memory in his studio. Yet his works miss no essential truth. This stage was not reached without much experimentalizing and profound study. Jacob Maris began with a scrupulous striving after finish, which would do credit to any of the little masters of Holland of the seventeenth century. Take for example The Weary Watchers (90), painted in 1869, in which the child is painted with the finish of a Metzu, and the cat approaching the cradle with the minuteness of a Mieris. It is a long jump from this picture to A Windmill, Moonlight (125), the last work which he finished; but under the surface of the latter, in spite of the apparent dash, we perceive not one whit less regard for essential truth. ¶ There are three or four canvases at the Guildhall which display Maris in his very finest mood. Many will, perhaps, consider that the finest of all, at least as regards brush work, is Gathering Seaweed (44). The sky with its immense grey white clouds, through breaks in which glimpses of blue beyond are discernible, is the chief factor in the picture. This is in every respect one of Maris’s finest works, and he has never exceeded the delicious silveriness of sea and sky and the sense of moisture in the breeze which he here gives us; his rendering of the wet flat sand on which stand the horse and cart of the seaweed gatherers has been equalled only by Bonington. ¶ Of somewhat similar character is the beautiful little Storm Cloud (80), into which he has infused much the same feeling; but another phase of Maris is shown in the wonderful Bridge (92), which deservedly occupies a place of honour on the walls of the Guildhall gallery. Across a typical Dutch canal is thrown a wooden bridge, under which, away along the placid canal, can be seen a distant quay abutted with houses; little red-tiled houses fill the extreme left and right of the picture. It is a simple motive which in strict accordance with the principles of the painters of Holland demonstrates the innate beauty of the commonplace. Quite equal to this, both for intensity of feeling and realization, is the River and Windmill (101) on the side wall; the sense of stillness and calm which pervades this work is typical of the tranquillity of a mind whose sole delight was in nature and its portrayal. The artist is equally successful in a very different way in the bold and powerful Dutch Town (43), which seems to be a freely adapted view of Amsterdam. This is one of his latest works, and was painted in 1898. There is a delicate shimmer on the water with its lazy craft, and the ill-defined buildings are developed in an atmosphere shrouded by haze and darkened by smoke. These two works should be compared with The Ferry Boat (81), painted in 1870, which owes something to Van Goyen and Soloman Ruysdael; to his appreciation of the qualities of his predecessors, and his study of their art, Maris’s own achievements must in great measure be attributed. It is always unsafe to prophesy, but it is almost safe to say that Jacob Maris’s reputation will last. ¶ The representation at the Guildhall of Willem Maris is much less worthy, and a better series of his works could surely have been obtained; but in one small panel, Springtime (37), we have the best qualities of his art, and it may be doubted whether in the representation of the delicate and poetical charm of spring Willem Maris is surpassed even by Daubigny, except in a very few pictures. The trees awaken from their winter slumber and put forth in velvety green the leaves which hardly more than tinge the brownness of trunk and branch. The stream swollen with the recent rain affords refreshing drink to the cattle which have just emerged from the copse on the right. The meadow, with its carpet of tender green bordered by a row of pollard willows, recedes until it meets the sky line. Light clouds float over the blue sky and betoken weather fair but fickle. ¶ When one turns from these two kindred spirits to their brother Matthew Maris one is struck by the contrast. For Matthew lifts us at once from things earthly into a spiritual atmosphere; everything that he touches he envelops in mysticism and poetry. Yet perhaps his work is more difficult of appreciation; he appeals to a more exclusive circle. Yet what magic contour of line, what exquisite rhythm, what consummate balance of composition, we find in it. The Outskirts of a Town (39), for instance, enveloped in a bewitching gloom, commends itself to the artist and student, though not to the lover of pyrotechnics. That fine canvas entitled Montmartre (40) is another example of the same idealistic treatment. Among examples of his work which particularly puzzle the public are such efforts as A Study (58) and A Lady and Goats (59), the latter an idyl inadequately described by its prosy title. But perhaps the essence of his art is to be found in The Butterflies (62) and L’Enfant Couchée (70), which for typical presentment and delicacy of colour are among his finest achievements.

We are back once more upon the earth when we come to Anton Mauve, of whose works there are no less than twenty-one examples in the Guildhall exhibition. With the exception of Joseph Israels, he is the most unequal painter of modern Holland; there are occasions when he comes near to equalling Jacob Maris at least in atmospherical effect, and yet at other times he sinks into a mere technical repetition of his better self. Of his best phase we could not have better illustrations than The Hay Cart (2) and Driving in the Dunes (4). In both there is the same feeling for truth, the same adaptation of technique to the necessities of the occasion. Watering Horses (97) is another fine work, resplendent with harmonies of green and grey, and showing the same feeling for natural phenomena. ¶ After such work as that of the brothers Maris, and Mauve, and occasionally Israels, one is inevitably disappointed with Mesdag. Mesdag misses the mark not because of any deficiencies in technique, but because his works lack that essential quality of landscape painting--atmosphere. The consequence is that we never lose sight of the paint; it is paint everywhere. This is all the more to be regretted since he is a good draughtsman, and his scheme of colour is often satisfactory and truthful; moreover he has a profound knowledge of composition. Yet with all these qualities he generally fails. We do not want a sunset sky full of prismatic glow, nor a sea shimmering with opalescent tints, if we cannot feel that it is a real sky and a real sea, and that something other than paint fills up the intervening space. Mesdag’s deficiency is emphasized in the two pictures shown in the present exhibition, A Stormy Sunset (28) and A Threatening Sky (54), which give us nothing but the mere physical features of the scene, and leave us with an undefinable yearning for something for which we look in vain. ¶ The other men whose work is represented for the most part owe what is best in their art to the greater lights of their school. Of such is the work of Théophile de Bock, of which Evening (17) is an example of a plagiarism on the school of 1830, intermingled with a Dutch sentiment which renders it difficult to say with certainty whether it should be classified as French or Dutch in sentiment. That Bock has originality when it is brought into play is amply demonstrated in An Avenue in Holland (94). The sunlit road with its strongly painted trees conveys an admirable idea of summer heat and foliage, in which the artist boldly achieves his aim without any aid but his own sheer force. Such a work shows powers which are never brought into full play when he attempts to see with other eyes. Apart from landscape there is but little of interest in the exhibition. An exception, however, must be made in favour of the fine canvas by Christopher Bisschop, Prayer Disturbed (29), which is a strong and powerful piece of painting, and also intensely sympathetic in realization. Two other canvases are worthy of mention, that by Albert Neuhuys, Near the Cradle (96), a fine representation of a cottage interior painted with incisive truth and directness, and Bosboom’s Archives at Veere (128), an excellent example of the interiors to which he devoted himself; it has the spaciousness and grace characteristic of the work of a painter than whom no modern artist has shown a keener appreciation of the artistic possibilities of ancient buildings.

THE SEALS OF THE BRUSSELS GILDS[81]

❧ WRITTEN BY R. PETRUCCI ❧

MONSIEUR G. DES MAREZ, professor at the university and keeper of the records of the city of Brussels, has drawn attention lately to three seals which appeared to him to be worthy of special study. These consist, first, of the matrix of the seal of the Gild of Barbers in the fifteenth century, which forms part of the sigillographical collection of the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire; secondly, of the silver matrix of the seal of the Gild of Butchers in the sixteenth century, preserved in the archives of the city of Brussels; thirdly and lastly, of the matrix of the seal of the Gild of Bakers, in the private collection of M. Charles Lefébure: this last belongs, like the first, to the fifteenth century. Now the Brussels gilds were never called upon to seal deeds, a fact of which M. Des Marez was the better aware as he had just obtained a gold medal from the Royal Academy of Belgium for an important study, which is at this moment in the press, on the organization of labour in Brussels during the fifteenth century. Were the three existing matrices therefore false? And, if they did in reality date from the period to which everything contributed to ascribe them, how was their presence to be explained? Those were the questions which M. Des Marez set himself to adjudge and upon which he has succeeded in throwing a brilliant light. ¶ Thanks to M. Des Marez’ kindness, I have been able to take cognizance of his work and of the seals upon which it bears. M. Des Marez’ study will not be published until the end of August or September next, when it will appear in the annals of the Archaeological Society. My readers will therefore be the first to find here set forth the solution of an important historical and archaeological question. ¶ The juridical incompetence of the Brussels trading corporations is indisputable. In the second half of the thirteenth century, the artisans began to lay down the outlines of a corporate movement. This led to a privilege obtained from Duke John by the patricians invested with power, by which the craftsmen were subjected to their authority. The gilds were dependent upon the town council for all that concerned the making of their rules and regulations; at most, they enjoyed the right of presenting drafts for the approval and sanction of the aldermen; they were not able to sell, pledge or mortgage; and, although their wardens were invested with certain police functions, their jurisdiction was nevertheless extremely limited. Difficult cases were submitted to the judgement of the aldermen, and in no case could the wardens of their own initiative proceed to a forced execution upon the persons or goods of delinquents. ¶ The gild was unable to issue any act directly, and therefore the use of a seal, the attributive mark of jurisdiction, is inexplicable. Even the Drapers’ Gild was without it, although this gild constituted a powerful administrative and jurisdictive machinery by the side of the aldermen, of whom, at the time of its splendour, it was even independent. It issued acts, which the trading corporations were not able to do, and made regulations, far and near, for all those having to do with the woollen manufactures or cloth-making. The absence of a collective seal is to be explained, in this case, by the use made by the deacons of their personal seals, a use proved by documents in which it is explicitly mentioned. It was not until 1698 that the Drapers’ Gild ordered a collective seal to be made. The matrix of this seal is lost, but there remains an impression of it affixed to one side of the very sheet containing the text of the resolution relating to it, which document is preserved in the archives of the kingdom, where I have been able to consult it. ¶ The engraving of this seal is very poor. In a circular field is St. Michael, clad in a Roman breast-plate, his legs cased in buskins. His forehead is surmounted by a cross, and his wings are unfolded. He brandishes a sword in his right hand. Lucifer lies felled at his feet. St. Michael is seizing one of the demon’s horns with his hand. Lucifer raises his right hand with a defending gesture; his left arm is brought back against his body. He wears short wings, one of which covers a part of the saint’s arm. His lower limbs end in claws; a long tail is twined between his legs. The impression is made on a paper pulp which was previously moistened. Above this was laid a cut-out leaf of thin paper, on which the matrix of the seal was pressed with force. The paper shows stains of mould; the reliefs are weak and difficult to distinguish; to reproduce them by photography is almost impossible. These circumstances, added to the fact that this piece has absolutely no artistic value, account for the absence of a reproduction in these pages. Between the two circular fillets that run around the above figures is this inscription: SIGIL · DECANOR · ET OCTOJUDICUM · GILDÆ · BRUXELLENSIS. (_Sigillum decanorum et octojudicium gildæ bruxellensis._) The text of the resolution says that the seal shall be inscribed with the words: _Sigillum collegii decanorum_, etc. The engraver could not find room for the word _collegii_, and was obliged to omit it. This is why a note added to the text of the resolution of December 4, ordering the execution of the seal, declares that a true impression of the seal is affixed on the other side and corrects the text by suppressing the word _collegii_. I may also mention that, whereas the seal shows the spelling GILDÆ, the text preserves the old mediaeval spelling GILDE. ¶ We find, therefore, that one alone of the corporations, the Drapers’ Gild, which was the most powerful, did unquestionably possess a seal, but at a late date, at the end of the seventeenth century. This innovation is due, on the one hand, to modifications introduced into the expedition of the acts, involving the abolition of the single or double parchment label separate from the sheet itself and bearing the seal; on the other, to the fact that the deacons abandoned the use of their personal seals, which served as a signature in the middle ages, for the customary employment of a manuscript signature. The personal seals of the deacons having been abandoned, it became necessary to have recourse to a collective seal. ¶ It is certain, therefore, that the juridical conditions under which the trading corporations were constituted give rise to very grave doubts as to the authenticity of the seals of the gilds. If we add the fact that the records contain no sealed document proceeding from any of the Brussels gilds, we shall feel greatly tempted to lend to these doubts the force of certainty. However, an examination of the three matrices of seals which are here for the first time reproduced scarcely permits us to believe in their falseness. Let me briefly analyse each of these three pieces.

The matrix of the seal of the Barbers’ Gild is in the sigillographical collection of the Musées Royaux du Cinquantenaire. Two figures are standing on a circular ground; they represent St. Cosmas and St. Damian, the patrons of barber-surgeons. They are dressed in the costume of the fifteenth century. The right figure, clad in a tunic that comes down to mid-leg, carries in its left hand a mortar exactly similar to the mortars that were still in use in Flanders in the last century. In its right hand, it holds an instrument that might be either a pestle or a lancet; it is a long, thin instrument, spreading slightly at one end. Its right arm is bent, and from the wrist hangs a sort of case shaped like a purse, with an open clasp. This figure symbolizes the barber. By its side is a shield bearing a pair of open scissors, with an instrument in pale that appears identical with that which the figure holds in its right hand. The figure on the left is clad in a long robe adorned with a wide collar, which seems to point to a profession superior to that of the mere barber: this is a surgeon. In his right hand, he holds a round phial with a long, bell-mouthed neck. His left hand is folded over his breast; the extended fore-finger points to the phial. From his wrist hangs a bag or purse-shaped case, with open clasp. By his side is the escutcheon of the city of Brussels, which, in the fifteenth century, was a plain red shield. The two figures are standing on a grassy mound. In the upper half of the circumference of the seal we see a device that reads: _S. barbitonsorū in brūx_. This seal is the only one of the three that bears a Latin device, a fact quite in keeping with the learned profession of the surgeons and barbers.

The matrix of the seal of the Bakers’ Gild is now in the private collection of M. Charles Lefébure. On the ground of the seal we see St. Aubert, Bishop of Cambrai, the patron of the Brussels bakers, clad in his pontifical vestments, with the mitre on his head. With his right hand he is giving the benediction; in his left he holds a peel, the shovel used for thrusting bread into the oven. The figure rises at half-length from behind a wide shield on which are represented, saltierwise, a peel, with two round loaves laid upon the blade, and a bar for raking the cinders. The circular inscription is in Flemish, it reads: _S. d’s ambachts · der · beckers · in brussel ·_ (‘Seal of the Gild of the Bakers in Brussels’). The seal displays all the characteristics of the fifteenth century.

The matrix of the seal of the Butchers’ Gild is in silver. It is kept in the archives of the city of Brussels. Its date must be carried back to the early sixteenth century; it is very beautifully engraved. St. Michael fells the dragon, represented as a shaggy monster with a bull’s head, which seizes the saint’s left leg in one of its claws; in the other, it clutches the escutcheon, which it bites in the lower corner. The saint is clad in armour. In his right hand, he brandishes his sword; with his left, he holds the escutcheon, which he uses as a buckler. On the shield figure the heads of three animals: an ox, a calf and a sheep. The exergue bears the device in Flemish: ~S. TSVLEESHOUWERS · A͡BACHT · IN BRUESSEL ·~ (‘Seal of the Butchers’ Gild in Brussels’). ¶ M. Des Marez connects the making of these seals with the great impulse towards emancipation that stirred the trading corporations in the fifteenth century. In the second half of that century, the protests of the magistrates are constantly multiplying, and the trades seem to be progressing towards complete independence. On the accession of Mary of Burgundy, a violent popular agitation wrested from the young princess the privilege of June 4, 1477, which hallowed the triumph of democracy. But this victory lasted only a little while; and, in 1480, Maximilian of Austria restored the old constitution of 1421. The execution of the seals must, therefore, be ascribed to this emancipatory movement and, doubtless, to that short period of three years during which the gilds, as sovereign masters, were called upon to seal their acts. It is to be presumed that, if any acts were sealed, these were very rare and were probably destroyed; and it is also very possible that, after the matrices had been engraved, the reaction set in almost immediately and that they were never used. ¶ This concerns the seals of the Barbers’ and Bakers’ Gilds. That of the butchers must be attributed to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The gild had, since 1450, claimed a privileged situation consecrating the hereditary principle: none could be a butcher who was not sprung from butchers. This privilege, granted by Philip the Good, kindled a quarrel between the butchers and the town which sometimes led to bloodshed and which lasted for seventy years. In or about 1516, Charles V put an end to this state of things by perpetuating the privilege. The date of the execution of the seal corresponds with this victory for the gild. But the butchers were stopped in their too independent courses and were made to continue to recognize the authority of the town council in all that concerned the making of their rules and regulations and the management of their interests. ¶ I have shown how constitutional history and sigillography have together enabled M. Des Marez to solve a question debated to this day by proving the genuineness of the seals of the Brussels gilds. The question involved a two-fold problem, historical and archaeological. The interest attaching to it will be understood when I add that seals of gilds are exceedingly rare in Belgium. Hardly any are known to exist except for Bruges, Saint-Trond, Hasselt, Maastricht, Liége and Ardenbourg. Almost all the tradesmen were subject to the authority of the town magistrates. The seals of the Brussels gilds survive as eloquent witnesses of a temporary triumph in their struggle for independence.

NEW ACQUISITIONS AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUMS

~British Engraving at the Victoria and Albert Museum~

The exhibition of British engraving which has been arranged at the Victoria and Albert Museum is of considerable interest and importance. Moreover, it is timely; for the trend of fashion in engravings has of late been in a direction so limited, that the need was very apparent of a corrective to a popular point of view by no means entirely warranted by the facts. The cult of the colour-print and mezzotint has been pursued beyond all reasonable bounds. In the hands of able merchants and indiscriminating patrons it has reached a mere absurdity--expressed in market values. The whole matter has got out of scale; and the most serious criticism that could be launched against the present exhibition--that it tried to cover a field too wide--is fully met by the absolute desirability of reminding the British public that there were line engravings of some importance; that aquatint had been used with results of no little value; that etching was not a lost art, and that mezzotints of subjects other than those devoted to portraits of pretty women were by no means ignoble. ¶ The art of line engraving was but tardily settled in this country, for some doubtful reason, not until well-nigh a century after it had reached a pitch of high perfection on the continent. Its tangible beginnings are represented at South Kensington by the superb title-page of the ‘Anatomy’ of Thomas Gemini (1545). But the work of William Rogers is the first of importance by a native-born artist. By him, we have the superb portrait of Queen Elizabeth, lent by his Majesty the King from the collection at Windsor; and three plates from Segar’s ‘Honor Military and Ciuill,’ Sir Thomas Docwra, Godfreydus Adelmar, and Alphonsus Rex Castiliensis. These very fairly represent the strongly individual talent of Rogers, who used a most expressive line with care and economy; and in his employment of the dot for the modelling of faces, foreshadowed the invention of stipple by more than a hundred years. ¶ The method of Thomas Coxon is not represented in the exhibition; but that of Elstracke, a Flemish contemporary has full justice done to it by the fine Prince Charles, as well as other prints from the King’s collection. His Majesty has also contributed most of the best examples of the severe and dry manner of the De Passe family, who had an influence so great on British line engraving; but whose technique, however able, seems to lack something, and to have destroyed the decorative qualities which were already apparent in the earlier group. An interesting comparison may be made between the Queen Elizabeth of Crispin de Passe and that of Rogers mentioned before. Of the engravers of the later part of the seventeenth century, mention need only be made of the fact that Faithorne the elder, David Loggan, Sherwin, and White, all receive ample justice in the exhibition; and this means that under their names will be found some of the finest prints exhibited in any branch of engraving. The line engraving of the eighteenth century developed for the best in subjects other than portraiture. Thus we have the strong work of that turbulent spirit, Sir Robert Strange, devoted mainly to the translation of paintings by the great masters; and that of William Woollett and his school to landscape, especially after Claude. Woollett is well represented by four plates attributed entirely to him, and by two in which Ellis and Vivares avowedly collaborated. But of the first it must be said that a note in Dance’s ‘Portraits’ expressly states that Thomas Hearne, the water-colour artist, who was apprenticed to Woollett, ‘etched’ the Roman Edifices in Ruins. The working proof exhibited at Kensington (No. 146) is, if this is true, in great part the work of Hearne. We have little space on this occasion for more than the merest summary of the contents of the gallery; an adequate notice of which would indeed require at least a whole number of this magazine. It is only possible therefore, in passing from the subject of line engraving, to draw special attention to Mr. Rawlinson’s splendid loan of specimens of the fine school fostered especially by J. M. W. Turner; to the numerous proofs of the delicate work produced by the book illustrators of about the same period; and to the interesting and unique examples of working and finished proofs of the Landseer school--portions of a collection which came to the National Art Library by the generosity of Mr. Sheepshanks--in its way, probably unrivalled.