ART.
THE BURRELL COLLECTION : NATIONAL GALLERY, MILLBANK.
THE larger part of the Burrell Collection has been on loan for some years to the National Gallery, Edinburgh. The whole of it is now being exhibited at the Tate. It is hoped that it will stimulate popular interest in the French and Dutch pictures of the later nineteenth century, whose works pre- dominate, and who will be represented in the new gallery of Modern Foreign Art, now under construction at Millbank.
The collection is a notable one, and of the 141 exhibits few are not good examples of their painter's. James Maris is best represented by the wonderful Breezy Downs (66), an atmospheric painting of extraordinary representational effect and equally satisfactory design. The use of the birds for both purposes is one detail of its mastery which may be indicated. Thomas Couture's Le Conventionnel (59) is rich, finely built up and psychologically expressive. One of the most attractive works is the little La Salle a Manger (7) by Vuillard. It is an exquisite piece of impressionism. The several Daumiers are admirable. One among them is the. famous L'Avocat Triomphani (44) Chardin's La Raie (60) is uneven—the cat is positively bad—but the others are pleasing, though not best, Chardins. Corot's Portrait de Femme (52) belongs to the greatest, least popular manner of this artist. Les Bijoux (11) is one of the finest Degas which I have seen : Les Jupes Rouges (16) is not greatly worse : the remainder are still good Degas. Other painters of the French and Dutch school well represented are Manet, Mauve, Bosboom, Yongkind, Courbet, Matthew Mads, Ribcrt and Boudin, the latter by the particularly exquisite La, Plage a Trouville (12). I have not mentioned all. The Velasquez study, Portrait of Marianne of Austria as a Child (85), is, of course, interesting. Hogarth's Mrs. Ann Lloyd (98) belongs to his nearly best. Reynold's Portrait of Mrs. Palmer (103) to his best that is not absolutely great. The same is true of Raeburn's Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo (106). The little Venus and Cupid (102) is wonderful, as, of course, Cranach must be : but it is not Cranach's masterpiece. Nor is the fascinating Stag Hunt (100). The fifteenth century Ecce Homo (97), School of Lorraine, is most interesting, a quaint, simple but intensely conscious design. Altogether,.
a most stimulating show. ANTHONY BERTP.AM.
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