THE NATIONAL GALLERY DISGRACE.
ENGLAND has never been considered very distinguished on the Continent for her taste or her appreciation of art. Our wealthy men buy, and negatively, we may say, abstain from displaying the bad taste that we have seen in over demonstrative Frenchmen or degenerate Italians. But of late years we have rendered our- selves rather conspicnous for positive bad taste, by the sculpture of our metropolis, and more recently by a demolition of great works entrusted to us, rivalling the iconoclastic superstitions of the Turks in Athens. One man amongst us some few years since raised his voice against the demolition which was going on in the National Gallery under the name of "cleaning," and the effect was, that while the .authorities could not in simple decency ab- stain from discontinuing the barbarous work, they have so managed as to reinstate the despoilers, while they have actually witheld any assistance from the man that guided them, and have done their very best to render him useless to his country. These, our disgraces have come in rather a glaring manner 'before the society of the rival capital, and the French are not slow to appre- ciate themselves at our expense. Nor can we complain if they do. The whole ease is laid before the Parisians for their edification and amusement by M. Leon Bette, who has collected a mass of reports, correspondence, and other documents, which furnish the materials for a resume, published here by Mr. Jeffs.
Mr. Moore, we say, rescued the National Gallery from two at- tempts at spoiling the pictures in the name of cleaning. We re- member the wife of a man tolerably "well off," who had a portrait of her husband executed by a talented sculptor, which she displayed with great exultation to her guests. They were surprised at its very antique appearance, since, within a few years, the features had been more effaced than those of the Assyrian sculpture in thousands of years. When she was asked the reason, outraged at the tone of complaint in the question, she triumphantly told how industrious she had been in " cleaning " the bust every day with a scrubbing brush. It was that process, as it had been carried on under the direction of Sir Charles East- lake and his colleagues, from which Mr. Moore rescued the pic- tures in the National Gallery. The Government of the day found. it necessary to remove Sir Charles and to discontinue the cleaning. But by a dodge Sir Charles is placed amongst the curators of the National Gallery, and Mr. Moore has been effectually bowed away.
Nearly at the same time he discovered in this country a beauti- ful picture which had been ascribed to Mantegna, but in which Mr. Moore detected the hand of Raphael. He offered it to the country, but since some benefit might have accrued to Mr. Moore himself, those whose cleaning propensities he had exposed and thwarted, combined to prevent the acquisition of this beautiful production. Every kind of authority was raked up in the hope of its turning out adverse. 1,1. Passavant was brought forward as a witness to prove that the painting was by the hand of Francis, and three days later by Timoteo della VW. This " dodge " was exposed by Lord Elcho, who in a letter to the Post says, most justly, the picture "is not only a Raphael but perhaps the purest and, most beautiful specimen of the master in this country." It is indeed. The authorship which Mr. Moore detected,—we will scarcely say at a glance, since he must have studied the picture elosely,--can be brought forward in the evidence of every touch. The subject, our readers will remember is the contest of Apollo and Marsyas. We leave aside expression, composition, colouring, and every part of the work which is less capable of express and tangible identification. Suffice it to note the drawing of the whole figure, the handling of the muscles, the marking of the internal outlines, of the muscles and joints, the lines of the hair, the model of the features, even the details of the cheeks, the arrangement of the mechanical accessories, the character of the landscape, the putting in of details in the foreground—traits in which the hand- writing of the master may be seen as plainly as the handwriting of Petrarch, or Southey, brought forward in a court of law. And, unlike the common autograph, here is an autograph multiplied in a hundred different manners, yet every one bearing all the strik- ing positiveness combined with freedom and delicacy which such a master could alone attain. In corroboration there is the style of the whole picture, precisely at the transition period between the adolescence and manhood of Raphael. There is the history of the picture, and the person for whom it was painted as a gift of grace ; there are studies for the chief figure in the composition amongst Raphael's drawings, and there is a drawing of the picture itself by Raphael's own hand, attested, in the Imperial Gallery at Vienna. This last fact became known to Mr. Moore, and he sought a pho- tograph of the drawing ; and our readers already know, that, in- credible as it may seem, the authorities in Vienna at first refused the photograph, and subsequently represented that they did so at the request of an English official, Mr. Moore's chief opponent. This was a combination which effectually stepped in between Mr. Moore and the nation, prevented the Government from buy- lug the picture, the Government being at the mercy of any gossip that "competent persons" could put afloat, and Mr. Moore from selling to any one who would vouch for a permanent and national custody of the picture. He took it to France, and there the Raphael, —officially unknown or ignored in England, though recognized by scores of men whose influence was based upon positive compa- rison,—has been at once welcomed as a chef d'ceuvre, by Ingres and many others whose judgment is of the highest value. All the artists and literary men, Guizot, Thiers, Merrimee, and others, have flocked to Moore's studio, and the picture has been ably described in most of the principal newspapers of Paris. De- scribed !--the artists and cognoscenti dwell upon it with a fond reiteration which proves the admiration it has excited. M. Battk's book is full of these admiring reiterations. The Consti- tutionnel, and other Paris papers point to its indubitable authen- ticity. This controversy all on one side, for the denials have sunk in despairing silence, has extended even to Germany, where the subject has excited great interest. The external evidences are brought together by the writers of Paris in a manner which shows bow they appreciate the question of historic art. The Con- stitut ionnel points to the existence of "the authentic drawing by Sanzio " in the gallery at 'Venice, where the official catalogue thus describes the work- " Raffaello. Apollo e Marsia. Operddi rare perfezione, in eui Rafaello mostra tutta la saa eleganza. Questo disco° 1'0 riconosciuto essere indub- biatnente di Raffaello."
"Apollo and Marsyas. A work of rare perfection, in which Raphael shows all his elegance. This design has been recognized as indubitably by Raphael."
Although, by the way, the composers of the catalogue did not know the painting, with its autographic evidence, or the corrobo- rative testimony of the drawing-book and many collateral works before them.
In truth, this painting, so peculiarly interesting as illustrating the transition period of Raphael's life, while containing, in its elaborate grace, the most masterly beauty of his perfect works, is among the most valuable of the productions that he has left. And let us remember, that the number of these productions being now limited, their value increases every year ; for there is a larger number of men to appreciate them, more knowledge to understand them, and more chance that the progress of inevitable time may diminish their own limited number. The work has been hailed, we may say, by the intellect and art of Paris, as it had been by those who had the opportunity of seeing it in Eng- land, and as it is by those who hear it through report of visitors in Germany. At no distant date, probably, as the conviction of so- ciety slowly matures itself, there will be an anxiety in other coun- tries as well as our own to possess the work. Men of disinterested mind, who care more for art than for the aggrandizement of any particular section of mankind, will be anxious above all things to provide the picture with a permanent and responsible home, where it may remain in safety for after ages. 1his is the great object now; and while it remains in the hands of a gentleman whose patrimony is his own striking ability, with only too inde- pendent a spirit—in the hands of a man who has been called "an adventurer,"—its home, so to speak, must be the portmanteau of the owner whose fortune it shares. Some day, probably, we shall find the Louvre, and the Imperial Gallery at Vienna, the Gallery of Berlin, or Dresden, competing with our own National Gallery for the possession of the prize. In the interval, perhaps, the picture may again have strayed into the hands of the auctioneer, and wandered into obscurity or destruction ; or, in the keeping of some wealthy private man, it may be hidden away from the world and follow the chances of his heirlooms, denied alike to empire or kingdom. But the subject has not even yet drifted entirely out of sight. There is one man at least in our Parlia- ment who combines the heart-feeling for art, with enough of in- dependence of spirit, again to make the question audible. There are there, too, those whom a certain impatience of temper has pro- voked for a time to act coolly towards the earlier champion of our National Gallery ; but they are men full of honourable feeling, they now enjoy increased authority, and, we are convinced, they are ready again and again to bear their testimony to truth and to the interests of art.
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