Historical Portraits Exhibited at Oxford, 1906. (The Clarendon Press. 7s.
6d. net.)—Many people will doubtless possess themselves of this volume. It will be a reminder to those who were fortunate enough to see the Exhibition itself (open during April and May of this year), and it will serve as at least a partial substitute for those who did not. More than two hundred portraits were exhibited, but some of these displayed the same original. Edward Gibbon, for instance, was represented by three portraits, the work of Henry Walton, Romney, and Sir Joshua Reynolds,— possibly by a fourth, but the identification is very doubtful, as is its attribution to the brush of Romney. Walton's picture, said by a contemporary to be "the very best likeness that exists," is a very uncompromising bit of work ; Reynolds's is obviously flattered; Romney's strikes one as the best. It gives the shape that we see in Walton's. Biographical and artistic particulars are given (we observe the misprint of 1712 for 1728 as the date of the publication of the "Dunciad"). Mr. Lionel Cast furnishes an introduction dealing with the subject of English art in the eighteenth century.
Previous page
