DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52801#0149
MR. BUCHANAN’S IMPORTATIONS—italy. 145
It is better than in the print, and was once, by
repainting, macle quite antique ; but I had it taken
off as truly ridiculous. To look for certain
beauties unknown to the master, or to the time
in which he lived, is a species of false criticism
much in vogue at present. You must not expect
another N. Poussin, for it is next to impossible to
find one. The two Rospigliosi ones, engraved by
Morghen, were offered to sale some time ago, but
at enormous prices, and they are such as I suspect
would not do in England, being rather dry. That
of the allegory on human life, of four figures
dancing, and Time playing, has to be sure many
beauties. I think 8000 crowns were offered for
the King of Naples, and refused. I wrote to you
before, that the landscape mentioned in a former
letter is a copy from Nicholas, so that I would not
venture on it.
“ I can now inform you from the best authority,
that the report of the Sampieri collection being on
sale is entirely groundless. I called this morning
on the Marchesa Lepri, aunt of the present pro-
prietor, a boy of thirteen years of age, and now
living with her: she told me that there never was
such an idea, that the tutors had no thoughts of
it, and if they had, she was sure the boy himself
would never give his consent, (a thing at his age
necessary) as he was passionately fond of the art,
VOL. II. L
It is better than in the print, and was once, by
repainting, macle quite antique ; but I had it taken
off as truly ridiculous. To look for certain
beauties unknown to the master, or to the time
in which he lived, is a species of false criticism
much in vogue at present. You must not expect
another N. Poussin, for it is next to impossible to
find one. The two Rospigliosi ones, engraved by
Morghen, were offered to sale some time ago, but
at enormous prices, and they are such as I suspect
would not do in England, being rather dry. That
of the allegory on human life, of four figures
dancing, and Time playing, has to be sure many
beauties. I think 8000 crowns were offered for
the King of Naples, and refused. I wrote to you
before, that the landscape mentioned in a former
letter is a copy from Nicholas, so that I would not
venture on it.
“ I can now inform you from the best authority,
that the report of the Sampieri collection being on
sale is entirely groundless. I called this morning
on the Marchesa Lepri, aunt of the present pro-
prietor, a boy of thirteen years of age, and now
living with her: she told me that there never was
such an idea, that the tutors had no thoughts of
it, and if they had, she was sure the boy himself
would never give his consent, (a thing at his age
necessary) as he was passionately fond of the art,
VOL. II. L