Chapter III: Introduction (1)

To form a just appreciation of the magnificent collection of paintings which the Louvre to-day contains would require an exhaustive study which might be spread over a term of years spent in the famous French capital itself. In the limited space at our disposal we can only touch lightly upon the historical events, the sociological causes, the grandeur of royalty, and the taste of the people, all of which contributed towards bringing about the formation of the great Musée National du Louvre as we now know it. It has been our endeavour to throw into prominent relief the outstanding features in the history of the Gallery and to sketch them in chronological order. The architectural claims of the building, its priceless collections of statuary and of _objets d’art_ of every age do not here immediately concern us; it is to the formation of the superb collection of paintings that we primarily desire to call our readers’ attention.

A small part of the building which is to-day known as the Louvre was first occupied as a royal residence by Philippe-Auguste (reigned 1180-1223), who converted a hunting-seat of the early French kings on this site into a feudal fortress with a strong _donjon_ or keep, the exact plan of which may still be traced by the white line marked since 1868 on the pavement in the southwest corner of the old courtyard. Charles v. (reigned 1364-80), who may be regarded as the first royal collector of art treasures in France, greatly enlarged the building of the Old Louvre as a residential palace; he is also said to have decorated the building with statues and paintings which have long since disappeared. The real foundations of the collection of _la maison du Roi_ were laid by François I. (reigned 1515-47), who during his Italian campaigns acquired a respect for art that proved to be an honour to his taste and a dowry for his country. The æsthetic movement had developed rapidly by 1541, when he laid the foundations of the present palace[2] and had already begun to form a collection of easel pictures. François I. invited to his court the master-painter Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who in 1516 left his native land for France, where he did the king little more than the compliment of dying in his realm, although not, as an unveracious tradition recounts, in his arms. Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531) was also employed at the French court, at which he arrived in 1518. Giovanni Battista Rosso (1494-1541), a painter of little genius but great ability, was summoned by François I. in 1530 to decorate the Château at Fontainebleau. Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71), the Florentine goldsmith, having “determined to seek another country and better luck,” was yet one more artist who set out for France, where, between 1540 and 1544, he adorned the royal tables with objects precious in workmanship and material. Primaticcio (1504-70), who is known to have cleaned at Fontainebleau in 1530 four of the large reputed Raphaels now in the Louvre, remained at the French court until his death. The strict authenticity of these four pictures—_The Holy Family of Francis I._ (No. 1498), the _St. Margaret_ (No. 1501), the large _St. Michael_ (No. 1504), and the _Portrait of Joan of Arragon_ (No. 1507)—does not here concern us. François I. also possessed at this date, among other notable pictures, Raphael’s _La Belle Jardinière_ (No. 1496, Plate VII.), Leonardo da Vinci’s _Virgin of the Rocks_ (No. 1599), and the same artist’s _Mona Lisa_ or _La Joconde_ (No. 1601, Plate IV.), while the art of Sebastiano del Piombo, Andrea del Sarto, and other painters, Flemish as well as Italian, was well represented in the royal collection during his reign.

[2] “François I. voulant avoir dans Paris un palais digne de sa magnificence et dédaignant le vieux Louvre et l’hôtel des Tournelles, amas irrégulier de _tournelles_ (tourelles) et de pavillons gothiques, avait fait démolir, dès 1528, la grosse tour du Louvre, ce donjon de Philippe-Auguste duquel relevaient tous les fiefs du royaume. C’était démolir l’histoire elle-même; c’était la monarchie de la renaissance abattant la vieille royauté féodale.”—Martin, _Hist. de France_.

The example set by François I. was followed by his successor, Henri II. (reigned 1547-59), for whom Niccolò dell’ Abbate (1515-71), an artist of secondary importance, was working from 1552 onwards. Henri II.’s queen, Catherine de Médicis, was also a patron of art, being herself a collector of coins and medals. To her influence was due the decoration of the Château of Fontainebleau and the erection of the Palace of the Tuileries,[3] which was subsequently connected with the Louvre by means of the Long Gallery, now Room VI. Her eldest son, François II. (reigned 1559-60), the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, first converted the new buildings of the Louvre into a royal residence. Henry IV. (reigned 1589-1610) enlarged the Tuileries, and almost completed the Long Gallery, which now contains such a large proportion of the pictures. Louis XIII. (reigned 1589-1610), his eldest son, seems to have taken little interest in the royal collection; but his mother, Marie de Médicis, invited Rubens (1577-1640) to Paris to decorate the Palace of the Luxembourg with that series of imposing canvases representing her own life-history which are to-day seen to their best advantage in the Salle Rubens (Room XVIII.) of the Louvre.

[3] An inscription on a tablet placed high up on the left of the Pavillon Sully records that François I. began the Louvre in 1541, and Catherine de Médicis the Tuileries in 1564.

No complete record has been found of the pictures which formed the royal collection previous to the year 1642. To that date belongs a meagre Catalogue of the objects of art which then remained at Fontainebleau, but it is supposed that when Louis XIV. (reigned 1643-1715) succeeded to the throne he inherited about one hundred pictures, the property of the Crown. With his accession a new era in the history of art in France began.

Meanwhile, across the water, a superb royal collection had been formed. Charles I. of England (reigned 1625-49) had begun his career as a patron of art before his accession, with the acquisition of the paintings and statues collected by his deceased brother, Henry. During his matrimonial visit to Madrid in 1623 he was presented by Philip IV. with Titian’s _Venus del Pardo_, now in the Louvre (No. 1587). Soon after his accession he began to collect systematically, employing trusty agents to buy for him in different parts of Europe. His most notable purchase was that of the collection of the Duke of Mantua, for which he paid £18,280 between 1629 and 1632. He is said to have possessed in all 1760 pictures by the date of his execution. Most of them were disposed of at auction by order of Cromwell between 1649 and 1652.

One of the most persistent bidders at the sale of Charles I.’s pictures was Eberhard Jabach, a native of Cologne, who settled in Paris and became a naturalised Frenchman in 1647. He was an enthusiastic buyer of pictures, and his collection soon surpassed that of the French king. It was known to all French connoisseurs, and was visited by all travellers of note. In time, however, Jabach’s energies as a buyer exceeded his financial resources, and when his debts amounted to 278,718 _livres_ he offered his collection to Louis XIV., who was most anxious to distinguish his reign by the formation of a gallery of pictures which should be in all respects worthy of it. To this end he purchased Eberhard Jabach’s collection, paying 220,000 _livres_ for the 5542 drawings and 101 pictures which it contained. The price originally asked by Jabach was 463,425 _livres_. Among the masterpieces thus acquired by the king were Titian’s _Entombment_ (No. 1584, Plate XIII.), which Jabach had had the good fortune to purchase from the English royal collection for the absurdly small sum of £128, and Giorgione’s _Pastoral Symphony_ (No. 1136, Plate X.), which had also been among the treasures of the English Crown.

To Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), who founded the French Academy in 1635, at one time belonged Andrea Mantegna’s _Parnassus_ (No. 1375, Plate XIV.), the same painter’s _Wisdom victorious over the Vices_ (No. 1376), Lorenzo Costa’s _The Court of Isabella d’Este in the Garden of the Muses_ (No. 1261), and the same painter’s _Mythological Scene_ (No. 1262), together with Perugino’s _Combat of Love and Chastity_ (No. 1567).

Another important buyer at the sale of Charles I.’s collection was Cardinal Mazarin (1602-61), who acquired several valuable pictures, besides statuary, tapestries, and other fabrics. Of Mazarin’s pictures the Louvre now possesses Raphael’s small _St. Michael_ (No. 1502) and a _Holy Family_ (No. 1135), which is catalogued under the name of Giorgione, but it is more probably from the hand of Cariani.

It is said that Louis XIV. preferred the pictures of his own court-painter, Charles Le Brun, to those of the Venetian master, Paolo Veronese, whose large canvas, _The Supper at Emmaus_ (No. 1196), was nevertheless acquired during his reign. Eight pictures by Annibale Carracci, all of which are not now publicly exhibited in the Louvre (Nos. 1218, 1220, 1222, 1226, 1231-34), Albani’s _Diana and Actæon_ (No. 1111), nine compositions by Guido Reni (Nos. 1439-55 and 1457), and ten paintings by Domenichino (Nos. 1609-10 and 1612-19), also enriched the royal collection during Louis XIV.’s reign. Nor were the great French painters neglected. The four pictures (Nos. 736-39) of _The Seasons_, by Nicolas Poussin, which had been commissioned in 1660 by the Duc de Richelieu for the decoration of the Château de Meudon, together with four of the largest Claudes now in the Louvre (Nos. 312, 314, 316, 317), were obtained for the royal galleries by the ever-watchful Colbert (1619-83), who had been appointed Minister of Finance on the death of Mazarin (1602-61). Flemish art, as seen in the stately pictures of Van Dyck, was represented by seven examples (Nos. 1961-63, 1970, 1973-75). On the other hand, Louis XIV. is said to have failed altogether to appreciate the work of Teniers and to have exclaimed, when some of that artist’s pictures were brought to his notice, “_Ôtez-moi ces magots-là!_” Only one of the thirty-nine pictures by Teniers now in the Louvre, the _Interior of a Cottage_ (No. 2162), passed into the Gallery at that date. The almost entire absence of Dutch pictures is also to be noticed.

An event of extreme importance in this pompous reign was the institution of the French Academy of Arts, in 1648, with Charles Le Brun (1619-90) as Director, the despotic power which he exercised in art matters bringing about his further appointment as Director of the Gobelins tapestry works in 1660.

In 1681 the Crown pictures and other royal art treasures were brought to the Louvre from Versailles and were temporarily exhibited there, the king paying a state visit to the capital on December 5 to see his _cabinet de tableaux_. We read that the walls of eleven rooms were covered up to the cornices. The collection, putting on one side all doubts as to strict authenticity, included six paintings by Correggio, ten by Leonardo da Vinci, eight by Giorgione, twenty-three by Titian, nineteen by A. Carracci, twelve by Guido Reno, and eighteen by Paolo Veronese. These treasures, however, did not remain long at the Louvre, but were “packed up, loaded on rough carts, and taken back over the paved roads to Versailles,” which had now taken precedence over Fontainebleau as a royal residence; and at Versailles the Court mainly resided until the Revolution, although Louis XIV. greatly enlarged the Louvre Palace and planted the Tuileries Gardens. At the death of _le Roi Soleil_ the Crown pictures numbered 1500.

The energy of Louis XIV. was followed by the apathy of his degenerate successor, Louis XV. (reigned 1715-74), who, however, added 300 pictures to the royal collection. The _Virgin with the Blue Diadem_ or _Virgin with the Veil_ (No. 1497), which still passes under the name of Raphael, was among the pictures which then passed out of the collection of the Prince de Carignan into the possession of the Crown. It was now a sorry moment for the pictures which, “scattered through the interminable and then ill-kept country palaces of the French Crown, exposed to every injury of time, ignorance, and weather, regarded at best in the light of old furniture and too often in that of old lumber, pleaded in vain for respect and care. No public Catalogue told of their existence; the generation that had talked of them had passed away; it was nobody’s business to ask for them, and few actually knew where they were. Even the new-comers passed into the same void which had swallowed their predecessors.” Some of the pictures previously recorded now disappeared completely, without leaving a clue to their fate. Eventually, in 1746, M. de la Fonte de Saint-Yenne in a pamphlet directed public opinion to the fact that these Crown pictures had for fifty years been hidden and neglected in “_une obscure prison de Versailles_.” As a result of this, in 1750, by the king’s permission, 110 pictures selected from the different schools of painting were brought from Versailles to the Palais de Luxembourg, where the large canvases by Rubens (now in the Salle Rubens at the Louvre) were regarded as forming a _centre d’études_. Here for the first time, and for two days only in the week, they were shown under certain restrictions to a limited public. In 1785 they were again removed to Versailles.

Although Louis XIV.’s well-known grudge against Holland probably accounted for the almost entire absence of Dutch pictures from the Crown possessions, Louis XVI. had the good taste to acquire works by Aelbert Cuyp (No. 2341, _Landscape_); Jan van Goyen (No. 2375, _Banks of a Dutch River_, and No. 2377, _A River in Holland_); B. van der Helst (No. 2394, _The Officers of the Arquebusiers of St. Sebastian_); G. Metsu (No. 2461, _The Alchemist_); Adriaen van Ostade (No. 2495, _The Painter’s Family_[?], and No. 2496, _The Schoolmaster_); Isaac van Ostade (No. 2510, _A Frozen Canal in Holland_); Rembrandt (No. 2539, _The Pilgrims at Emmaus_, No. 2540, and No. 2541, _The Philosopher in Meditation_, No. 2555, _Portrait of Rembrandt aged_); Jacob van Ruisdael (No. 2559, _Landscape_, and No. 2560, _Sunny Landscape_); Terborgh (No. 2587, _The Military Gallant_); and Philips Wouverman (No. 2621, _The Prize Ox_, and No. 2625, _The Stag Hunt_). Five of the less important of Murillo’s pictures now in the Louvre (Nos. 1712-15 and No. 1717) were also acquired at this period, and the series of twenty-two large canvases illustrating _Scenes from the Life of St. Bruno_ by Eustache Le Sueur were also purchased by Louis XVI.

From 1725 onwards the Salon held its Exhibitions in the Salon Carré (Room IV.), but after 1848 this room was used only for Paintings by the Old Masters.

In 1790 a Commission was appointed by the National Assembly “to register and watch over all that was most valuable,” and on May 26, 1791 a decree was made that the Louvre should be thenceforward dedicated to the conservation of objects of science and of art. On August 26 of the same year a further Commission was appointed by the National Convention to inspect and gather together the treasures of art scattered through _les maisons royales_. The Convention decided that the “Museum of the Republic” should be officially opened in the Long Gallery of the Louvre on August 10, 1793, and from November 8 of the same year the Museum was open to the inspection of the public three days in every ten. This, the first public exhibition of art treasures in the Louvre, was the foundation of the present institution. The Catalogue of this date contains reference to only 537 pictures, the greater number of which came from Paris churches and national buildings. The inhabitants of Versailles now petitioned that their town should not be despoiled of its pictures, “and so be deprived of its last attraction in the eyes of the world”!

The Louvre was now destined to become for a few years the temple of the _spolia opima_ which the victorious French army brought home. “This system of levying pictures, statues, and other objects by means of treaties, so called, in which the conqueror dictated terms to those incapable of refusing them, was a dishonourable novelty in the annals of modern warfare. Disdaining the usages of Christian nations and overleaping especially the traditions of French courtesy and chivalry, Buonaparte turned back to the ages of pagan history for a precedent for his measures of spoliation.” By the Treaty of Bologna of June 23, 1796, and the Treaty of Tolentino of February 19, 1797, he became possessed of twenty pictures from Modena, twenty from Parma, forty from Bologna, ten from Ferrara, while Rome, Piacenza, Cento, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona, Loreto, and Perugia also had to yield up a portion of their treasures.

The first exhibition of this booty was held in the Louvre in January 1798. Here, during the next few years, were gathered together many of the world’s most famous pictures, including Raphael’s _St. Cecilia_, now in the Bologna Gallery; Correggio’s _St. Jerome_ and his _Madonna della Scodella_, now in the Parma Gallery; Raphael’s _Transfiguration_, now in the Vatican, and his _Madonna della Sedia_, now in the Pitti Palace at Florence; Domenichino’s _Last Communion of St. Jerome_, now in the Vatican; Titian’s _Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr_, destroyed by fire in 1867, and his _Assumption_, now in the Venice Gallery; Van Eyck’s _Adoration of the Lamb_, now dismembered and distributed between Ghent, Berlin, and Brussels; Paris Bordone’s _Fisherman of St. Mark_, now in the Venice Gallery; and Paul Potter’s _Bull_, now at The Hague. “Here was seen the unexampled sight of twenty-five Raphaels ranked together, the great master complete in every period and walk of his art. Here twenty-three Titians glowed in burning row. Here Rubens revelled in no less than fifty-three pictures and in almost as many classes of subject. Van Dyck followed his illustrious master with thirty-three works, while thirty-one specimens of Rembrandt’s brush shed a golden atmosphere upon the walls. The later Italians especially were magnificently represented—thirty-six pictures by Annibale Carracci, sixteen by Domenichino; twenty-three by Guido; including the largest altarpieces by each; and twenty-six by Guercino, were perhaps the most popular part of the wondrous show.”

However, in September 1815, the pictures and other valuable works of art which France had plundered from her foes had to be given back, and the spoliation of the Louvre began. In all, 5233 objects, of which 2065 were pictures, were taken away from the Royal Museum by the Allied Powers.

An event rare in the history of public galleries took place in 1813, when the Louvre received Carpaccio’s _Preaching of St. Stephen_ (No. 1211), Boltraffio’s _Madonna of the Casio Family_ (No. 1169), Marco d’Oggiono’s _Holy Family_ (No. 1382), Moretto’s _St. Bernardino of Siena and St. Louis of Toulouse_ (No. 1175), and the same artist’s _St. Bonaventura and St. Anthony of Padua_ (No. 1176), in exchange for five pictures by Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Jordaens.

It is curious to notice that at this period very little importance was attached to Italian primitives, which were, indeed, deemed “barbarous.” Many beautiful works of the very early Italian schools were actually not considered worth the trouble and expense of transport, and were therefore left for the lasting glory of the Louvre. Among them may be mentioned Fra Angelico’s _Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 1290); the _Madonna and Child and Two Saints_, (No. 1114), now officially ascribed to Albertinelli; Bronzino’s _Christ and the Magdalene_ (No. 1183); the _Madonna and Angels_ (No. 1260), which passes under the name of Cimabue; Gentile da Fabriano’s _Presentation in the Temple_ (No. 1278); the _Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 1303), still officially ascribed to Raffaellino del Garbo; _St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 1312), which still passes under the name of Giotto; Benozzo Gozzoli’s _Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas_ (No. 1319); Fra Filippo Lippi’s _Madonna and Child between Two Saints_ (No. 1344); Pesellino’s two small predella pictures (No. 1414); Piero di Cosimo’s _Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 1416); _The Madonna in Glory between St. Bernard and St. Mary Magdalene_ (No. 1482), which is still assigned to Cosimo Rosselli; Lorenzo di Credi’s _Madonna and Child with St. Julian and St. Nicholas_ (No. 1263); Cima’s _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1259); Vasari’s _Annunciation_ (No. 1575), which is now in one of the storerooms of the Louvre; the Ferrarese _Madonna and Child with St. Quentin and St. Benedict_ (No. 1167), which is still assigned to Bianchi; Andrea Mantegna’s _Calvary_ (No. 1373) and _Virgin of Victory_ (No. 1374); Domenico Ghirlandaio’s _Visitation_ (No. 1321); and Perugino’s _St. Paul_ (No. 1566). Further proof of the slight regard in which certain pictures that we cherish to-day were then held is afforded by the readiness with which the authorities sent two panels of Mantegna’s altarpiece, the centre-part of which is now in the Church of San Zeno at Verona, to the Museum at Tours, and parted with Perugino’s altarpieces to the public galleries of Lyons and Marseilles.

Under Louis XVIII. (died 1824) 111 pictures were purchased for the national collection at a cost of £26,730, but during the reign of Charles X. (1824-30) only 30 were acquired, £2511 being expended on them. An outlay of £2965 by Louis Philippe (reigned 1830-48) enriched the Louvre with 33 more pictures, but that king concentrated his efforts on the restoration and decoration of the Château of Versailles, on which he spent £440,000.

In the early years of the Second Republic a large number of improvements were effected in the Louvre, and in 1848 £8000 was spent on restoring several of the rooms now hung with pictures, which were first systematically arranged three years later. Although the Museum had at that period an annual grant of £2000 for the purchase of pictures, special grants in aid were made from time to time, notably on the occasion of the sale of Marshal Soult, pictures from whose collection were acquired in 1852 for £24,612. In this way Murillo’s _Immaculate Conception_ (No. 1709, Plate XXVI.) passed to the Louvre from the “Plunder-master-General” of the Spanish campaign.

During the Second Empire the Musée du Louvre acquired about 200 Italian primitives from the Campana collection, while seven years later it was further enriched by the important bequest by Dr. La Caze of 275 paintings of different schools. Since 1870, when the Palace of the Tuileries was destroyed, the permanent collection has been increased by the purchase in 1883 for £8000 of the Morris Moore “Raphael” (No. 1509), which has since come to be universally regarded as a work by Perugino; while about 300 other paintings of varying importance have also been acquired from time to time with Government funds. In recent years the national collection has benefited largely by the generosity of private donors, among whom we may mention MM. Duchâtel, Gatteaux, His de la Salle, Lallemant, Maciet, Rodolphe Kann, Sedelmeyer, Grandidier, Vandeul, and several members of the Rothschild family.

In 1896, by the sale of a large proportion of the Crown jewels, a _Caisse des Musées_ was organised, and the annual income devoted to the purchase of pictures notably increased. A year later the _Société des Amis du Louvre_, which corresponds to the National Art-Collections Fund in England, was founded to assist in securing pictures and other works of art for the nation; by that means the _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1300A or 1300B) which passes under the name of Piero dei Franceschi was acquired by the Louvre.

In May 1900, on the inauguration of the _Exposition Universelle_, the opportunity was taken to rehang a large part of the collection, and the Galerie de Médicis (Room XVIII.) and the eighteen small cabinets built round it were first used for the better exhibition of a large proportion of the Flemish and Dutch pictures. Shortly afterwards, by the death of M. Thomy Thiéry, an Englishman who had become a naturalised Frenchman, over 100 paintings, mostly of the school of Barbizon, became an exceedingly valuable addition to the Louvre, and filled a void in the history of French painting in the nineteenth century. During the last two years the most memorable purchases by the Government have been that of Chardin’s _Child with a Top_ (No. 90A), which was acquired together with the same artist’s _Young Man with a Violin_ (No. 90B) for £14,000, and Hans Memlinc’s _Portrait of an Old Lady_ (Plate XVII.) for £8000.

The national collection of the Musée du Louvre now includes in its Catalogue nearly two thousand eight hundred oil and tempera paintings, about four hundred of which have not been exhibited for many years.

EARLY SIENESE SCHOOL

This school of painting, one of the earliest in the history of art in Italy and probably the earliest with which the ordinary student of art in Italy will concern himself, was affected throughout the whole range of its history by the influence of the miniaturists. It was characterised by naïveté, and in the hands of its earliest painter, Duccio di Buoninsegna (1255-1319), strove to realise an effect of hieratic sumptuousness, its precision and grace being that of “a sanctuary swept and garnished.”

The Louvre possesses no picture by Duccio, who derived his technique from the Byzantine miniaturists, although he modified their methods. Standing between the old world and the new, Duccio occupied an important position at the head of the school of Siena, which in the early years of the fourteenth century set a noble example to the other towns and incipient schools of Tuscany. Passing reference may here be made to the artistic aims and religious aspirations of the cities of Rome, Pisa, and Arezzo, but it is Siena which stands out pre-eminently at this early date as interpreting scenes of quiet rapture and sacred peace, its own social life being bound up in “chivalry, the meat of the eye,” and “piety, the wine of the soul.” Both Duccio, who was first employed by the Government of his native city as early as 1278, and Cimabue, his senior by fifteen years (if we are to accept the much contested records), have alike been hailed as the author of the _Rucellai Madonna_ which still hangs in the Church of S. Maria Novella in Florence. This picture was a generation ago almost unanimously accepted by responsible critics as the work of the Florentine painter, and those who still advocate the claims of “Florentinism” are loath to destroy their cherished illusions. It is not our duty here to bring forward the arguments in favour of its later ascription to Duccio, who, we are led to believe, painted it early in his career, before he had learnt to free himself from the stiff gestures and Byzantine types of a former tradition. Duccio, it must be conceded, never quite succeeded in giving to his compositions that sense of life, character, and design which we find in the works of Giotto, his junior by some twenty years, who was the first artist to accomplish vast schemes of monumental decoration. Duccio, however, was the bearer of that torch which was to kindle the flame of religious art both in Siena and Florence. Nevertheless, Sienese painting was destined, almost from the moment of its birth, to show signs of dwindling into a school of trite copyists and shallow quietists. Early in the fourteenth century the lofty ideals manifested by emotional Siena spread to scientific Florence, and by the beginning of the fifteenth century the city on the Arno gave unmistakable signs of becoming the leading art centre in Tuscany.

DUCCIO’S FOLLOWERS

The greatest of Duccio’s followers was Simone Martini (1285?-1344), who was also slightly influenced by Giotto. Simone, whose _Christ bearing His Cross_ (No. 1383, Plate I.) is the earliest Sienese picture in the Louvre, has been well described as “a reactionary who made a whole beautiful world of his own.” In this small picture the colours stand out most clearly, although the drawing and perspective are, of course, faulty. It belongs to a series of which other panels are at Antwerp and in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum at Berlin. A _Crucifixion_ (No. 1665) that is catalogued as being by an unknown Sienese artist may be attributed to Ugolino da Siena (fl. 1290-1320); it would seem to be the centre panel of a large and lost altarpiece.

(1285?-1344)

SIENESE SCHOOL

No. 1383.—CHRIST BEARING HIS CROSS

(Jésus-Christ marchant au Calvaire)

Christ, preceded by the executioner, soldiers, and two children, is
bearing His Cross to Calvary. He is attended by a large crowd in
which may be recognised the Virgin Mary, in blue robes, supported
by St. John; St. Mary Magdalene in red, with her long hair falling
over her shoulders, raises her hands in grief.

Painted in tempera on panel.

10 in. × 4 in. (0·25 × 0·10.)]

Pietro Lorenzetti (fl. 1305-50) was probably a pupil of Duccio, and was influenced by Simone Martini, but Pietro and his younger brother, Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1285?-1348?), who represented a new movement and endeavoured to set forth the civic ideal, are not represented in this collection.

Simone Martini’s brother-in-law, Lippo Memmi (died 1357?), is possibly the author of the _St. Peter_ (No. 1152), a poor picture which is officially assigned to Taddeo di Bartolo (1362?-1422). The art of the latter is, in the opinion of Mr. Berenson, seen in the small _Crucifixion_ (No. 1622), which the Louvre authorities modestly catalogue as being by an unknown fourteenth-century Italian painter.

To Bartolo di Maestro Fredi (1330?-1410), who came under the influence of Lippo Memmi and the Lorenzetti, is given a _Presentation in the Temple_ (No. 1151). Paolo di Giovanni Fei (fl. 1372-1410), whose pictures are rarely met with out of Italy, may be regarded as the author of the _Madonna and Saints_ (No. 1314) which is officially held to be by an unknown Florentine painter of the school of Giotto. The Louvre possesses no example of the art of Sassetta (1392-1450), who, together with Paolo di Giovanni Fei, deeply impressed Giovanni di Paolo (1403?-1482). The latter may be credited with the small panel (No. 1659A) which is officially entitled _The Entry of Pope Martin into the Castle of Saint Angelo_, and included in the Catalogue as being by an unknown Florentine, but labelled “School of Masaccio.” There can be no doubt that this quaint little picture depicts _Pope Gregory the Great’s Vision of the Archangel Michael sheathing his Sword over the Castle of Saint Angelo_. According to the legend, Gregory had been indefatigable in nursing the plague-stricken in Rome in the sixth century, and while on his way at the head of a procession to offer up prayer for the cessation of the plague, saw “the warrior of God” in the attitude here shown. Gregory, after fleeing from those who wished to make him Pope, was elected to wear the papal tiara under the title of Gregory the Great. He is chiefly known to us as having sent missionaries to preach the gospel in England, having been moved to pity by seeing British captives exposed for sale in Rome, and for his arrangement of the music of the chants which are after him known as Gregorians. The official title of the picture, on the other hand, assumes that we have here Pope Martin V., a man of saintly character, making his entry into Rome in 1421 amid the acclamations of the people. He had been elected Pope in 1417 on the deposition of John XXIII.

By this time the art of Siena had progressed some distance on the road that its religious aspirations and technical accomplishments indicated, but it soon became evident that the more intellectual aims of Florentine art were shaping the course of all the painters of Italy.

THE FLORENTINE SCHOOL

Although we have begun our study of the art of Italy with a review of the Sienese School, which owes its importance to Duccio, the earliest Italian picture in the Louvre is the _Madonna and Angels_ (No. 1260), which may be accepted as a characteristic example of the type of picture that passes under the name of Cimabue (1240?-1302).

Giovanni Cenni de’ Pepi, to give him his full name, has been hailed as “the father of modern painting.” The Louvre _Madonna_, which was formerly in the Church of San Francesco at Pisa, was carried off to Paris by Napoleon, but not considered worth the trouble of repacking when in 1815 the Allied Armies called upon the French to surrender the pictorial spoils of war. It is known that Cimabue was working at Pisa at the very end of his life, and, although he was engaged there as mosaicist rather than as a painter, the _provenance_ of this large painting, which is executed in tempera on panel, has to be taken into account in any discussion as to its strict authenticity. It is certainly reminiscent of the _Rucellai Madonna_, and shares much of its character. The painter has repeated, with certain modifications, the Byzantine type of Madonna, whose almond-shaped eyes and long, bony fingers should be noticed. It has been freely restored.

From the same church in Pisa comes Giotto’s _St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 1312). According to the descriptive account handed down to us by the unveracious Vasari, Giotto (1266-1337) was originally a shepherd boy whose latent talent was recognised by the discerning Cimabue, who forthwith took him as his pupil and taught him how to paint, the boy’s genius enabling him early to surpass his master. Although it would be rash unquestioningly to accept this archaic production as an authentic work by Giotto, it is one which any national collection would treasure. It depicts the supreme event in the life of St. Francis, when during his vision virtue passed from the wounded hands, the wounded feet, and the wounded side of the Christ into the same parts of the saint’s body. In the predella are three scenes from the life of St. Francis: (_a_) _Pope Innocent III. dreaming that St. Peter reveals to him that unless the Franciscan Order is founded the Church_ (typified here by the Church of S. John Lateran in Rome) _will fall down_; (_b_) _The Pope founding the Order_; and (_c_) _St. Francis, wearing the brown robes of his Order, and preaching to the birds_: “Whenas St. Francis spake these words to them, those birds began all of them to open their beaks, and stretch their necks, and spread their wings, and reverently bend their heads down to the ground, and by their acts and by their songs to show that the Holy Father gave them joy exceeding great.”

THE GIOTTESQUES

Four school pictures (Nos. 1313, 1315-1317) illustrate the example set by Giotto, who influenced very strongly indeed all art-manifestation during the fourteenth century, an age when the human body was denied all intrinsic significance. His profound feeling, gay colour, high dramatic power, and sense of form mark the emancipation of Italian art from the rigid formalism of the Byzantine manner. He discovered a style which was admirably suited to the spirit of his time, and developed for his own purposes a sense of perspective which he employed with considerable effect, although he never really found a scientific statement of the artistic principles which he instinctively perceived. His indefatigable energy and innate genius enabled him to distance his rivals and to bequeath to his countrymen a heritage which profoundly affected the art of Italy.

Foremost among his followers, who imitated his mannerisms without understanding the full significance of his ideas, was Taddeo Gaddi (1300?-1366), to whom are assigned in the official Catalogue the predella pictures (No. 1302) of (_a_) _The Death of St. John the Baptist_, (_b_) _Calvary_, and (_c_) _Judas Iscariot_. Taddeo Gaddi, a painter and architect, was the godson and pupil of Giotto as well as the pupil of his father, Gaddo Gaddi. Taddeo’s desire to give suitable expression to each of his figures often resulted, as in that of the daughter of Herodias in the second of these panels, in exaggeration.

Taddeo’s son, Agnolo Gaddi (1333-1396), who was described by Ruskin as “rather stupid in religious matters and high art,” may be the painter of the _Annunciation_ (No. 1301), in which we see the Virgin seated in a loggia to the right of the picture. The Archangel Gabriel announces, by the gesture of the right hand, that the Virgin shall be the Mother of the Christ. God the Father is shown in the heavens. Notice the gold background and the mosaics of the loggia. The mechanical methods and uninspired aims of the Giottesques, the artists who worked during the century which followed the death of Giotto, are well seen in the productions of Lorenzo di Bicci (fl. 1370-1409), his son Bicci di Lorenzo (fl. 1373-1424), and his grandson Neri di Bicci (1419-1491). Neri is represented by a _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1397). He might justly be described as a mere manufacturer of Giottesque pictures to order. He brought art down to the level of a trade, his work being flat and his colour raw and inharmonious.

A _Virgin and Infant Christ_ (No. 1563), inscribed “TVRINVS VANNIS DE PISIS ME PIQSIT P,” is evidently by Turino Vanni (fl. 1390-1398), a rare artist of this group of Florentine painters. The brief list of his pictures might be increased by having added to it a few panels at Pisa and Assisi, which are erroneously ascribed to Buffalmacco.

Andrea Orcagna (1308?-1368?) and his brother Nardo are not represented in the Louvre, but we have a follower of Agnolo Gaddi in Lorenzo Monaco (1370?-1425), who is seen to advantage in his _Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane_ and his _Holy Women preparing the Tomb_ (No. 1348A), which is inscribed “ANNO DÑI 1408,” and was formerly attributed to Gentile da Fabriano. Lorenzo Monaco is officially credited with a triple picture (No. 1348) of (_a_) _St. Agnes_ with her lamb and a martyr’s palm branch; (_b_) _St. Lawrence_, the artist’s name-saint, holding in his right hand a book and palm branch, and enthroned on a gridiron, the symbol of his martyrdom; and (_c_) _St. Margaret_, the patron saint of Woman as Mother, standing on the dragon. Lorenzo Monaco, who is reputed to have been the master of Fra Angelico, usually depicts long, slender, and sinuous bodies. Below this picture hangs a small panel, apparently part of the predella of an unidentified altarpiece. It does not seem to be included in the official Catalogue, and has neither a number by which to identify it nor a label to denote its subject or authorship! The picture has apparently never been referred to or described in any article or book. It certainly represents the Emperor Heraclius carrying the True Cross into Jerusalem. The picture appears to have been painted by Giovanni del Ponte (fl. 1385-1437).

Neither Starnina (1354-1408), who took the traditions of Early Florentine painting to Spain, Masolino (fl. 1383-1435), who is rarely met with out of Italy, nor Masaccio (1401-28), who may be said to have vitalised Italian art, is represented in the Louvre. Tommaso Masaccio, the “Hulking Tom” of Browning, gave to Italy and the world the magnificent series of frescoes which still decorate the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine Church in Florence. He imparted to his figures such natural movement, vivacity of expression, free attitudes, simple draperies, and excellent modelling that he entirely revolutionised the art of Florence. His figures are, as Vasari said, “so lifelike that they seem to live and breathe.” This series of frescoes was studied with enthusiasm by all the great Florentine painters; Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and innumerable other artists derived the greatest possible benefit from them.

FRA ANGELICO

On the threshold of the Renaissance stands Fra Angelico (1387-1455), who was trained in the school of miniaturists and influenced by Lorenzo Monaco and Masaccio. His life was devoted to “the service of God, the benefit of the world, and his duty towards his neighbour,” as Vasari says. He regarded painting as one of the duties of the monastic life, and never began to paint without first kneeling in prayer. His pictures are aspirations towards heaven, while the figures with which he peoples his saintly compositions have faces which show peace, joy, hope, and communion with God. They are clothed in draperies of the purest colours, crowned with glories of burnished gold, but are never dramatic in their action. One of his best easel paintings outside Florence, where alone his art can be adequately studied, is his early _Coronation of the Virgin_ (No. 1290). This imposing, if overcrowded, composition is painted to the glory of God and in honour of the Dominican Order, to which the painter belonged. In the right bottom corner we see St. Agnes with her lamb, next to her St. Catherine with her wheel, above is St. Lawrence with his gridiron, and to the latter’s right St. Peter Martyr in Dominican robes and with wounded head. In the foreground kneels St. Mary Magdalene in red, her box of ointment in her left hand. St. Nicholas with the three golden balls at his feet, St. Thomas Aquinas in Dominican robes and holding the theological book from which rays of golden light issue, St. Louis (Louis IX., King of France), and St. Dominic himself—all help to swell the heavenly company. In the predella, or lower part, of this panel picture are depicted _Scenes from the Life of St. Dominic_, the founder of Fra Angelico’s own Order: (_a_) Pope Innocent III. in his vision sees St. Dominic supporting the falling Church; (_b_) the Pope receives, through the agency of St. Peter and St. Paul who hand him a staff and the Gospel, Divine authority to found the Dominican Order; (_c_) the Saint brings back to life a young noble named Napoleon who had been trampled under foot by a horse; (_d_) Christ in the tomb, the Virgin and St. John; (_e_) St. Dominic challenges heretics whose books are consumed in the fire, while his own book of the true Gospel issues forth unhurt by the action of fire; (_f_) angels descend from heaven to feed the starving monastery of St. Sabina at Rome immediately after St. Dominic has asked a blessing; these two blue-clad figures are among the loveliest of all Fra Angelico’s angelic beings, and perhaps the most inspiring figures in the whole of the Louvre collection; (_g_) the death of the Saint at Bologna and the passing of his soul up to heaven in accordance with the vision of the monk at Brescia. This early Cinquecento panel picture, which was formerly in the Church of S. Domenico at Fiesole, near Florence, was painted before the Beato went to beautify the cells of S. Marco with frescoes. It is one of the best of the primitive pictures in the Louvre.

From the hand of the same saintly painter are the _Adoring Angel_ (no No.), which until 1909 was in the Victor Gay collection, the _Martyrdom of St. Cosmo and St. Damian_ (No. 1293), part of the predella of a dismembered altarpiece, and the large fresco painting of the _Crucifixion_ (No. 1294) which hangs on the Escalier Daru. The latter was purchased, together with Domenico Ghirlandaio’s _Bottle-nosed Man_ (No. 1322, Plate III.), in 1879 for £1960. The _Beheading of St. John the Baptist_ (No. 1291) and the _Resurrection_ (No. 1294A) are unauthentic.

In Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1498) we have an assistant and follower of Fra Angelico. He worked at different towns in Italy, notably at Montefalco, Orvieto, Florence, San Gimignano, Rome, and Pisa, where he died. Although his earlier work reminds us of Fra Angelico, than whom he is much more dramatic and much less spiritual, in later life he depicts the costumes and life of his time in a more realistic and objective manner. His _Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas_ (No. 1319), which originally hung in the Cathedral at Pisa, deals with a subject often met with in the art of the period. The great Dominican teacher, whom the heathen philosophers, Aristotle on the left, and Plato on the right, recognise as their master in philosophy, is enthroned, his books of theological learning on his knees. At his feet, subdued, is Guillaume de St. Amour, the author of a book entitled _De Periculis Novissimorum Temporum_, in which he exposed the various abuses then prevalent among the mendicants. The dramatic action seen in the lower part of the panel embraces Pope Alexander IV. presiding over the religious council of Agnani, and the envoys of St. Louis (Louis IX. of France) who took steps to end the religious conflicts of 1256. A large altarpiece (No. 1320) representing the _Madonna and Child Enthroned_, _St. Cosmo_, _St. Damian_, _St. Jerome_, _St. John the Baptist_, _St. Francis d’Assisi_, and _St. Lawrence_ in the central panel is also assigned to Benozzo. The frame also contains seven predella pictures, and at either end is the coat of arms of the Medici family.

The great French Museum, which is weaker than the National Gallery, the Berlin Gallery, and certain other national collections in Italian primitives, affords us no example of the art of Andrea del Castagno (fl. 1410-1457), whose compositions are characterised by harsh colour, hard lines, and crude forms. Nor do we find here any painting by that very rare artist, Domenico Veneziano (1400?-1461), who, it has been said, was the first Tuscan artist to work in an oil medium.

PAOLO UCCELLO

Prominent among the masters who were influenced by Donatello, the sculptor, and Lorenzo Ghiberti, the first metal-worker in elegant forms, is Paolo di Dono, generally known as Uccello. His profound study and ultimate discovery of the laws of linear perspective was enhanced by the inquiries into the laws of aerial perspective that Fra Angelico studied so deeply. Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) was a pupil and assistant of Lorenzo Ghiberti, who made the bronze doors for the East Side of the Baptistery at Florence. He gave himself up to the scientific study of perspective, the principles of which he was one of the first to apply to painting, thus rendering incalculable services to art. In his _Battlepiece_ (No. 1273) is seen a mounted soldier in armour with his sword drawn; on the left are horsemen about to charge with couchant lances, while on the right cavalry-men are drawn up awaiting orders, their lances in rest. The correctness of the perspective and the justice of the foreshortenings and the movements of the foot-men in the intervals of the cavalry mark an epoch in art. This is the third and right-hand panel of the series of three battle-pictures which Uccello painted for the Casa Medici (now the Riccardi Palace) in Florence for Cosimo de’ Medici about the year 1457, and not, as the official Catalogue asserts, for the Bartolini family. The best preserved of these three large panel pictures illustrating the _Rout of San Romano in 1432_ is that in the National Gallery (No. 583), while the second or centre panel of the series is now in the Uffizi (No. 52). The Louvre panel is in a deplorable condition, caused by long neglect.

Uccello’s _Portraits of Giotto, Paolo Uccello, Antonio Manetti, and Filippo Brunelleschi_ (No. 1272), whose names are in this order on the panel, is a work of considerable importance, as marking an early stage in the development of portraiture. This picture, which is referred to at some length by Vasari, constitutes a historical document. The Italian chronicler tells us that Uccello “was a person of eccentric character and peculiar habits, but he was a great lover of ability in those of his own art, and, to the end that their memory should remain to posterity, he drew with his own hand on an oblong picture the portraits of five distinguished men, which he kept in his house as a memorial of them. The first of these portraits was that of the painter Giotto, as one who had given light and new life to the art; the second was Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, for architecture; the third was Donatello, for sculpture; the fourth was himself, for perspective and animals; the fifth was his friend Giovanni (_sic_) Manetti, for mathematics. With this philosopher Paolo conferred very frequently, and held continual discourse with him concerning the problems of Euclid.” Manetti’s real Christian name, Antonio, is correctly inscribed on the panel, but is inaccurately given as Giovanni by Vasari and on the official label.

The _St. John the Baptist as a Child_ (No. 1274), which hangs in the Long Gallery, is labelled as a picture of the Florentine school, and catalogued as being by Uccello. It is perhaps by Piero di Cosimo.

We enter on the first period of the coming Renaissance with Fra Filippo Lippi (1406-1469), who was trained in the best school of Florentine painting. He was a pupil of Lorenzo Monaco, came under the influence of Fra Angelico, and was affected by the magic spell of Masaccio, whom he must have seen at work in the Brancacci Chapel. In the latter half of the Quattrocento the cult of love and beauty was rapidly dethroning the more austere ideals of an earlier age. Filippo Lippi’s stormy and romantic career passes into a new phase with his residence at Prato in 1452. Four years later he was appointed Chaplain to the nuns of S. Margherita in that town. The year before his arrival in Prato, Lucrezia and Spinetta, the orphan daughters (aged eighteen and seventeen respectively) of Francesco Buti, had, apparently much against their will, been placed in the Convent, the abbess of which commissioned the Frate to paint a picture of the _Madonna della Cintola_. Lucrezia posed to the painter-chaplain for the figure of the Madonna in that picture. On May 1, 1456, on the occasion of the exhibition of the Holy Girdle of the Virgin, a precious relic still preserved at Prato, the painter bore off Lucrezia out of the safe keeping of the convent. A short summary of these well-known facts is suggested by the view which is put forward in the official Catalogue of the Louvre, to the effect that the _Madonna della Cintola_ is to be identified with the _Nativity_ (No. 1343) in this Gallery. The weight of evidence is against this theory; in fact, this large panel picture has little claim to be regarded as the work of Fra Filippo. One critic has given it as his opinion that the _Nativity_ was begun by Fra Filippo and completed by Fra Diamante, who succeeded him as Chaplain at Prato. Others have attributed the picture to Pesellino, Baldovinetti, and Stefano da Zevio respectively. It seems to show the influence of Andrea del Castagno. The official Catalogue does not indicate the _provenance_ of the picture, although it implies that it came from the Convent at Prato at the time when it was brought to Paris by Napoleon. There can be little doubt that the _Madonna della Cintola_ is the painting thus named which still hangs in the place of honour in the Municipal Gallery at Prato.

The Louvre does, however, possess in the _Madonna and Child with Angels and Two Abbots_ (No. 1344, Plate II.) one of the best of the Frate’s creations, although the colouring has suffered considerably. It is an early work, and was painted about 1437 for the Barbadori Chapel in Santo Spirito. It contains beauty of line, freshness of colour, and much variety in the composition. The cast of the draperies is ample and the motives are novel and bold, the Renaissance background throwing into prominent relief the soulful and ideal figure of the Madonna. The predella panels of this dismembered altarpiece, for which Fra Filippo received forty gold florins, are now in the Accademia at Florence. They depict (_a_) _St. Frediano deviating the Course of the River Serchio_; (_b_) _The Virgin receiving the Announcement of her Coming Decease_; and (_c_) _St. Augustine in his Study_. The _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1345) is only a school picture.

(1406-1469)

FLORENTINE SCHOOL

No. 1344.—MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ANGELS AND TWO ABBOTS

(La Vierge et l’Enfant Jésus entre deux abbés)

The Virgin stands before the throne holding the Infant Christ to
the adoration of two kneeling abbots and surrounded by six angels
carrying lilies. To the left a monk leans over the balustrade, and
two small child-angels flank the composition on either side.

Painted in tempera on panel.

7 ft. 1½ in. × 8 ft. 0¼ in. (2·17 × 2·44.)]

In 1457, the year that Fra Filippo’s son Filippino was born, his household effects and box of colours were seized for debt. He lived on until October 4, 1469, when he died of a sudden and somewhat mysterious illness. The Frate, who is the connecting link between Masaccio, the first blossom, and Raphael, the full flower of Florentine painting, was the master of Botticelli. A small _Madonna and Child_ (No. 1345) has little claim to be regarded as the work of Fra Filippo.