THE OLD MASTERS AT BURLINGTON HOUSE.
[FIRST NOTICE.]
THE exhibition of the Old Masters at Burlington House is growing pitiably weak, both in numbers and quality, and this year's collection is both the smallest and the worst that there has been. Nevertheless, there are several pictures of great interest, and a fair proportion of good, average examples of the various masters' work. We propose to point out briefly some of the more interesting compositions, adhering, for the most part, to the order of the catalogue. It may be interesting to some of our readers to learn that the Academy has been re- decorated to a considerable extent, and is now resplendept in all the glories of fresh gilding and new oak panel- ling. We do not know whether the Academicians con- sidered this setting of their house in order as a preparation for more radical changes, but certainly the time is approaching, and that quickly, when they will have to do more for English Art than has hitherto been the case. At present, their patriotism seems chiefly confined to taking the shillings of the Art-loving public, and giving a dinner once a year to the most celebrated people in London.
In the first room, a little landscape, good in colour, by John Sells Cotman, a very attractive picture, representing a stream, with boys fishing (8) ; a fine portrait of Lady Wray, by Sir Joshua (2) ; and an interesting sea-coast picture by Collins, R.A., very solidly painted ; a curious Turner, called " The Unpaid Bill," of the interior of a laboratory, with three figures, of a father, mother, and son (this work is said to have been painted in 1808) ; several averagely good but unimportant ex- amples of Wilkie; an indifferent lot of Gainsboroughs ; a poor specimen of one of Landseer's bulls ; a good, though small, classical landscape by Richard Wilson ; and a very artificial, Claude-like composition by Turner, called "Autumn Morning," make up the chief works. Perhaps, the pleasantest thing in the room is the grey and black study, by Constable, of Gilling- ham Mill, interesting, if only from its extraordinary likeness to a modern French landscape, which, by the way, is not won- derful, since the French notion of landscape painting is in no small measure founded upon Constable's work.
The second gallery is devoted chiefly to the Dutch and Flemish masters, and the finest thing therein is quite certainly a study of a young lion, life-size, ascribed, and probably cor- rectly, to Rubens, though, at first sight, it seems a little difficult to trace that master's handiwork. This is magnificent in colour and treatment, and in the grip of the subject which the painter has had. The young lion is lying with his back towards the spectators, and his head twisted over towards the front of the picture. He is, in fact, rolling about lazily, and clawing at everything that comes in his way. The action expressed in the paws, their lissomeness and power, could hardly be surpassed, and the mere brushwork of the picture is very fine; a delight- ful composition, and one of the finest in the whole exhibition. Several fair but uninteresting examples of Both, Teniers, Cuyp, and Ostade, and a good Metzu, of a lady pouring out wine for a gentleman who sits beside her, bring us to another fine, and this time very characteristic, example of Rembrandt. This is a (?) " Holy Family," as far as the catalogue knows, but much more probably a simple scene of peasant life;—two women sitting in a large, bare room, by the side of a cradle, a strong light lent by a candle upon the group, and all the rest of the picture in warm obscurity. There are several small but good examples in this room of Teniers, Frank lids, Ostade, and Van der Heyde, from the collection of Mr. Walter, M.P., which deserve careful examination. And there is a small specimen of Van der Heyde, lent by Mr. James Fry, with figures by Van der Welde, which is as charming as anything in the gallery. It represents some houses and figures, both in deep shadow, and behind them a brilliantly blue sky, half-covered with white clouds.
The third gallery introduces us to the Spanish and Italian schools, and the larger English pictures. The following are the most notable works :—" Time Clipping the Wings of Love," by
Vaudyck ; characteristic, but hardly pleasant,—few of Vandyck's allegorical pictures are pleasant; for, to my mind, there is always a sort of finger-on-the-nose business about them. "The Death of Dido," a large, important, and meretricious picture of Sir Joshua's, lent by the Queen,—a failure in everything but Next this comes a fine, single, female figure, by the same artist (of somewhat similar character to the portrait of Mrs. Siddons as the " Tragic Muse"), entitled Fortitude."- " Portrait of a Gentleman," by Tintoretto, lent by the National Gallery of Ireland, in every way a magnificent picture, full of power and seriousness, carefully painted, and of a deep, rich key of colour, though there is not a bit of positive tint in the whole picture ; "The Triumph of Pan," by Nicholas Poussin, fine example of a master whose works have little attraction for me ; a " female figure," ascribed to Leonardo, but probably not by him, the face better than the hands and arms, all very black in the shadows ; another of the innumerable Venus and Adonis's by Titian, identical in size and subject with the one in the National Gallery, but sadly different in its colour,—it may be one of the many replicas of the subject, or it may not. We must leave till another day the mention of the best Georgione, Veronese, and Turner, as of all the early Italian pictures, in the fourth gallery.
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