26 DECEMBER 1846, Page 14

THE TRAFALGAR DETERGENT ELIXIR.

A VERY important discovery has been brought to perfection, and is about to be carried into extensive practice. It is a plan for putting modern and ancient art upon an equality. It is well known, that, as in most branches of civilization, art has made im- mense strides of late years, especially in England ; insomuch that the highest works of imagination in painting are now reduced to a mechanical certainty, and at the same time the price is brought down as much in proportion as that of silks or cottons. Our Art- Union was unknown to Italy in the very height of its glory : hence Titian and Michael Angelo, and a comparatively few men of that stamp, were able to make a monopoly of the market ; whereas by means of our machinery they would have been exposed to com- petition, and might even have been driven from trade by a Carlo Dolce or a Bamboccio of the day. We do not say it in any spi- rit of boasting ; for we do not forget the advantages which we enjoy, in freedom of the press, in steam, in railroads. Of the fact, however, there can be no doubt ; and we might point for proof of the immense advancement to the works of a Shee or an Eastlake ; though in justice it ought not to be forgotten that they have been preceded by a Greuze and a Hamilton—precursors of what has since been brought to greater perfection.

In this altered state of art, it is remembered with regret., that vast stocks of pictures in the old style remain on hand, at Rome, Florence, Leipzig, and elsewhere ; and we have some in London. They have, however, materially fallen in value ,• as we learn from the fact that some pictures by Titian, Raphael, and other early hands, when offered to the managers of the National Gallery of England, recently, proved quite unsaleable ; though some pleasing pieces attributed to Guido, more approximating to the modern style, were liberally paid for; and Grenze is duly honoured. Con- sidering the pictures merely as works of art, this depretiation of value might be the less deplored, as it indicates a proportionate change of taste ; but considering them as property, it becomes a matter of serious import.

It is with pleasure, therefore, that we are able to announce a plan, just discovered, for making even those old pictures available. Perhaps it may not be possible to turn a Claude into a Turner ; but the changes actually effected far surpass what might have been expected. The process is very simple; it consists merely in re- moving the outer coats of the old painting. It is astonishing how effectual this process is with some works ; though in others the taint of antiquity is too much ingrained. The process has been tried in our gallery, where it has been brought to a high state of perfection. Several pictures have undergone the operation ; but on none has it been employed so boldly and so strikingly as on a picture called "Peace and War," by P. P. Rubens, a Flemish painter. In its present state, we do not hesitate to say, it would do honour to some of our own artists ; for whose work, so far as the texture and colouring go, it might even be mistaken : the de- sign, of course, is not so easily modified. It is astonishing how much this picture has been brought to resemble an English one of the present day : without seeing, it would scarcely be believed.

The same process of improvement, we understand, is to be ex- tended to the whole of our national collection as rapidly as time will permit ; so that the whole will be turned, as it were, into pictures of the newest fashion.

It was not to be supposed that so great an invention would pass without opposition; and there have not been wanting cavillers to rail at the proceedings in Trafalgar Square. The change, in- deed, could not fail to strike the most untutored eye with painful distinctness ; but a question has been raised as to its expediency. This may easily be brought to the test in a way suggested by a memorial from "the undersigned artists, professors, and painters," to the authorities at the National Gallery ; of which a correspondent has sent us a copy. It should be premised, that among the new school of cleaners the outer coats of the paintings in question are called "dirt" or "varnish and dirt."

"We, the undersigned artists, professors, Ste-, do hereby humbly implore and beseech your worships, that, for the satisfaction of the public in general and our selves in particular, you would cause to be mixed up such a composition of dirt and varnish as that which your worships have just had removed from these pictures; (your worships, doubtless, knowing the exact analysis of such com- position, else you would not have ventured on removing it so confidently;) and that you would cause such composition to be superinduced over one half or quarter of one of the aforesaid pictures—say that of Rubens—so as to restore that half or quarter exactly to the condition it was in before your worships' last cleaning. By this simple process, it is presumed, the public will be at once satis- fied that their property has not been injured ; and it will then only remain to be decided whether such composition of dirt and varnish, being deemed to improve

that picture, shall be further extended over the remaining surface of that and the other pictures; or whether it shall be finally removed as detrimental to them : in which latter case, such composition can be as easily and entirely removed again by your worships as it was before. "But further, whatever be the decision of the public on this point, we, the undersigned, do earnestly implore and entreat your worships to communicate and reveal to us the secret of such composition of dirt and varnish, and the exact proportions of each; in order that we may avail ourselves of it, to our own great and to the advantage (as we think) of most modern pictures, as well as of many ancient ones which have undergone such a process as that to which the three aforesaid pictures in the National Gallery have been subjected."

In this last suggestion we do not altogether concur. It would be undoing all that the reformers have been doing. It would be about as reasonable as if you were with one hand to buy a picture by a celebrated artist, and with the other to destroy better picture by the same artist.