THE PUBLIC HUMBUGGED IN WORKS OF ART. To THE EDITOR
OF THE SPECTATOR.
19th July 1837.
Sin—It being the duty and interest of every private individual who is an honest man to expose public humbug, more especially when its object and direct tendency is to lower the moral and wsthetical feelings of a whole nation, I make no apology for addressing the following communication to you ; per- suaded that both yourself and the numerous readers of your consistent and talented paper will thank your correspondent for his timely warning. In Some of your late numbers, you have honourably devoted a considerable portion of your literary columns to the exposure of the polite frauds—for that is their right name—by which, under the influential patronage of certain superficial lordly coteries, and the high-feed recommendation of a well-known personage, the arbiter elegantiartim in all matters and dealings of art to our sapient Lon- don dilettanti, many comparatively inferior pictures have been bought at enor- mous prices, and foisted into the National Gallery, to the exclusion of others far more deserving to be placed there ; and you moreover inform us for our Conso- lation, that there are " still more treasures of the like nature in store for us." Nothing more probable. For, to those in office, what more tempting moment can there be than the opening of a new reign to cuts dash, and buy golden opi- nions of men by the generous outlay of a few thousands of the public money upon " treasures" which cost themselves nothing. But as the public is, most likely, but little aware how such precious treasures are procured for them, the following facts may help to give them a slight notion. There is, or was till within a very short time since, a picture exhibited in Pall Mall, which the owner is pleased to call a " Newly-discovered Corregio Magdalen." For this picture—having himself, as he confesses, given a very small gum for it—he DOW modestly demands six thousand guineas ; and proposes to get it bought into the National Gallery ! " Deeply impressed as be is (thus he writes in his Prospectus) with the conviction that it is a work of the eery highest class, perhaps even the chefid'reuvre of the divine Corregio, and sup- ported as lie is in that conviction by the firm opinion of many eminent artists and enlightened connoisseurs, he feels that it would be a national loss should so inimitable a work of art be purchased for any foreign gallery." Amiable dis- interestedness! And then only observe how he proceeds to put it into execu- tion. Having, by the usual process of placarding and puffing, got people into his exhibition room—most of whom, being mere fashionable sight-seers, of course know little or nothing about painting—he places in their hoods& neatly- printed and plausibly-written paper, containing an exegetical dearri lawn of the artistic beauties of CORREGIO'S style in general, and of this, Iris d'auvre, in particular; and having thus given to them the impressien he desires, re- quests them, should they think the picture not unworthy of a place in the na- tional collection, to subscribe their names to a list which he keeps in the room for that purpose. After all this politeness and prevenance on his part, what can they do but politely acquiesce? And thus has he by these means already procured a considerable number of signatures, many of them from his above- styled "distinguished connoisseurs," 1. e., from rich and titled ignorant come- quencial would. be patrons, and some few from those who ought to have knows a great deal better. To say the least of it, the plan is ingenious: for he has thus had the art to get up privately a public petition—and for what ? to help to put quietly into his own pocket6,000 guineas, to be taken from the pockets of the people ! Truly an excellent new way to pay old debts ! Ingenious, how- ever, as the plan is, its ingenuity is still inferior to its impudence. For on many accounts it is one of the most impudent attempts at public humbug which has for a long time been exhibited in London. In the first place, the picture ut not by CORREC 10. This bath the external and internal evidence sufficiently prove. The owner himself allows, that as to" what is termed the history of the picture nothing is at present known ;" and that "until within a few months
past the pictuie itself has been uuknown." What is this but saying in other
words that there is to external evidence at all in it favour; or rather, that ex- ..., ternal evidence ti iris directly to discredit its claim to genuineness? For is it SPECT ATOR'S LIBRA.RY, credible, is it probable, is it possible, that a picture by CORREGIO of such merit as this is PO confieently predicted to be, perhaps his very chef dceurre, should ,. have been entirely unknown for nearly three centuries, while all Italy has been Travels to Eireassia. Krim Timmy, Sas; including a Steam Voyage dorm 4, again and again ransacked to find out his works? And Ss eing the high price Danube. from Vienna to Constantinople'. and wand the Biiek Sea. in 113.36. B, they have fetched, and especially the finer productions of his pencil, everybody Edmund Spencer, Esq. Author of " Sketches or Germany and G who has hod the bidet° possess one bas been but too eager to make it known, 2 vols.
for the gratification of his own pride and cupidity. So touch for the external 'evidence: and what then says the internal ? Let any one go and examine the picture carefully with his own eyes, and he may at once convince himself. Not
to speak of all the other striking faults in it, the bosom itself—that preeminently The Pictorial Bistory of Enelana; l‘einr a Mem)! or the PonPle 1111 :sada la..
important feature to be delicately expressed in such a subject—the bosom is u made utterly flat! And will any one believe that Conevoso, who delighted would represent a female bosom like a flat brood? The thing is impossible:
and excelled to perfection in the grace and delicate roundness of his forms, The Basque Provinces, their Political State, Scenery. and Inliabita;thait:taskiftthaandir: and the more so, as the Magdalen in this picture is by no means repre- Narrative or au F.xpedition into the Interior or Arden by the River Niger. in o, sented in a state of maceration, but with full fleshy arms the right hand stearmvessels ()norm and Albarhalt. in 1832-LS33-1M. ByoM icgregor Lainl sod tingling red, indeed too red, with the blood she has in arms, body. That R. A. K. Outfield, surviving °freers (Attie Expedition. In - vole Body.
the picture is not without considerable merit, we do not deny ; nay, in some
by CORREGIO, that would be no leon, considering the present state of parts it is Corregiesque ; but by CORREGIO, never ! And even if it were
m
Our National Gallery, for its admission there. On the contrary, that would be the very reason why it should not be admitted. Our collection is at • present, for a national one, exceedingly small. It contains but a very limited MR. SPENCER iS favourably known to the public by his Sketches number of the works of the great masters. Out of these theic are already five of Germany and the Germans ; a book which, in spite of the or six by C0RRF.G10, of various sine and on various subjects—about one thir- literal character of the author's mind and.the 'superficial nature tieth of the whole number in the gallery : and as some of them rank amongst of many of his observations, was pleasing, front the numhee the most celebrated productions of his genius, be may be said to be fairly and fully represented there. It ought also to he remembered, that for his pictures of its topics, the variety of its matter, and the familiarity with a more exorbitant price has been given than for any others in the collection ; Germany and the Germans which a long residence enabled the and especially for the two last, which were purchased from the Margolis of writer to attain. A similar degree of attraction is imparted to LONDONDERRY, of course, by the advice and recommendation of Mr. SE. portion of the present volumes, from the novelty of their subjects otilEa! No one with any soul for painting can be insensible to the exquisite and the temporary interest which is attached to them. (Jimmie merits of Coaarom's style, but after all his style is but one expression of the art, and that not of its very highest character. Unquestionably the sublime 5f has rarely been penetrated by travellers; the yet unsettled seizure tholeght and passion is the highest character of art, the great object and em l, of the Vixen makes many keenly alive to the feelings of it (or as the Germans mere philosoehicallyexpress it in a single word endzweck,) people and the prospects of their success in the existing struggle the great end and object at which it aims. Now this CORREGIO seldom or never for independence ; whilst the exaggerated reports of the strength attains, and indeed in this respect is inferior to many other painters, both of of Russia render any information as to the power and resourcesof the Flurentine and Roman, and even of the Venetian school. Who, for in- stance, would compare either of the Connecios in the Gallery to that grand that state desirable even if we have to pick it out from a variety of design and solemn painting of alicirsil. ANGELO and SEBASTIAN DEL PI. other matter, and to draw our own conelusions. Hence, the second omao, where the Lazarus, as he beholds and listens to the life giving form and volume of the Travels in Cireassia and Krim Tartary &rives s words of the Redeemer, looks himself so instinct with life, and with such sublime value from the matter, which -the manner of the author, though energy bursts asunder the bonds of the grave, that one feels in imagination as light, lively, and pleasant enoukh, could never have imparted. if one were gazirg. not at a picture, but at a real resurrection : whilst thus through sense, overcoming for the moment that faculty which judges according We limit our praise to the second volume; because the contents to the experience of sense, that cold-blooded Mephistophelic understanding of the first, like the course and companions of its writer, is mostly which doubts ard denies the possibility of the realization of the ideal, the commonplace. Finding himself at Vienna in April 1836, Mr, artist sublimes one in spite of one's self up to the faith of reason, making us SPENCER took advantage of the high state of the Danube to to see and believe, and become, as it were, the witnesses to the truth of the descend from that city to the Black Sea ; the usual starting-place glorious miracle, the triumph of religious art ! Suck was the grand idea of MseitAEL ANGELO in the picture. Is there sueli a one to be found in all the being Presburg, and the descent thence not being always accom- works of Coangolo? Or can they be compared to the 'sublimity of that pro- plished with facility. Arriving at Galatz, he embarked in an- found and beautiful composition of LEONARDO, the youthful Christ confuting other steam-boat for Constantinople ; and, after telling little, but the old Doctor.? or to the divinely-impassioned " Bacchus and Atiadne," by more than enough of what he saw at that often-described place, TITIAN, which looks like the visible spiritualization, the harmonious embrace- he started for Odessa. Here Mr. SPENCER had the luck to silent just about to be—for the god has notyet descended upon her—of mortal and immortal passion ? No' CORneo to might with truth affirm, "Ed io son meet Count WORRENZOW, the Governor of Krim Tartary, and to pittore," for so he was, and an exquisite one ; but not of first-rate power. be invited to accompany a large party of fashionables in a steam- And even had he been, a national museum of pictures ought not to be made boat trip round the Black Sea, but more especially along the coastof the exclusive studio of any single artist, however distinguished, but ought to Circassia. This excursion was, no doubt, delightfully luxurious to contain a historical collection of the works of all the great masters of the those engaged in it ; but as Russian jealousy rarely allowed foreigners art. If the public money is about to be disbursed in the purchase of pictures, &c. why not purchase specimens of masters we do not at present possess. to land, and as, when they did set foot on shore, it was impossible Why, for instance, have not the LAWRENCE Drawings, or, proh pudor ! what to go beyond the camp or fortress without the risk of being picked still remains together of them, been procured ? That collection Was incom- off by the natives, little was seen save the external features of parablv the most valuable that ever came into this country, not only for the the country, visible from the deck of the steamer. And they astonishing bealty and power of many of its individual specimens, but as form- had hardly passed the boundary of Circassia before a gale sprung ing the only real foundation for a scientical history of the art of painting since the period of its restoration in Italy ; or why, at the sale of Mr. COESEELDT'S up which, making the company sick and fearful, drove back the magnificent pictures, why, among others, was not that imaginative picture of fresh-water sailors to Krim Tartary : and with this catastrophe Bem.rel, TITIAN'S master, purchased ? or that adorable Madonna of Fra the first volume terminates. BARTHOLOMEO which RA EFAELLF, his scholar, thought so divine as to deserve The early part of the second contains the author's account of tote copied by himself? and his copy is now at Berlin. Of these masters, as of a tour in the Crimea, which he made comfortably, by the assist- fifty others, in the galleries abroad are to he seen many delightfully inatruc- ance of his friend its Governor ; and of. an overland journey to tive works, whilst we have not a single one of them; and yet we go on collecting,
possessor of the Magdalen, Mr. Artivasrose.. Nothing could be more open
Of course, without satisfactory proof of the fact, it would not fetch so much ;
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