DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0025
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
XXI
siastical, began to be devoted to civil and social purposes
-—that portraiture came into fashion, and that composi-
tions from the classical poets, and small decorative and
devotional pictures, began to be painted. Even these, up
to the end of the sixteenth century, were very rare; and
most of the panel paintings of this time which remain to
us have been cut from the doors of cabinets and presses,
the friezes of bedsteads, the tops of harpsichords, and other
pieces of furniture. Pictures must have multiplied, and
become articles of trade, as well as common for mere
decorative purposes, before the idea of collecting those
most remarkable could have suggested itself. The Vene-
tians and the Flemings first made pictures articles of com-
merce. As early as the fifteenth century a few Flemish
pictures were imported into Italy, and bought as curiosities;
and in the middle of the succeeding century we find the
Bassano family carrying on a sort of manufactory of small
pictures, recommended by their splendid colours, and
various, though low and common-place treatment. These
were dispersed through Italy, and sold at fairs as articles
of commerce, much like the Dutch and Flemish pictures
of thp same and succeeding periods. More than a cen-
tury later, we hear of the Feria—the markets for pictures,
at Cadiz and Seville, where the young Murillo sold his
wares.
I find no mention of collectors of pictures, and founders
of picture galleries, before the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury, and then they were all princes of the sovereign houses
of Italy—the Medici, the Gonzaga, the Este, and the
Farnese families. It is true that there had previously existed
collections of works of art, if not of pictures: witness
Isabella D’Este, and her cabinet of gems and antiques at
Mantua, open to the learned and to artists, before the
time of the Medici, and before Lorenzo’s famous Acca-
demia; but she was a sovereign princess. I can find no
XXI
siastical, began to be devoted to civil and social purposes
-—that portraiture came into fashion, and that composi-
tions from the classical poets, and small decorative and
devotional pictures, began to be painted. Even these, up
to the end of the sixteenth century, were very rare; and
most of the panel paintings of this time which remain to
us have been cut from the doors of cabinets and presses,
the friezes of bedsteads, the tops of harpsichords, and other
pieces of furniture. Pictures must have multiplied, and
become articles of trade, as well as common for mere
decorative purposes, before the idea of collecting those
most remarkable could have suggested itself. The Vene-
tians and the Flemings first made pictures articles of com-
merce. As early as the fifteenth century a few Flemish
pictures were imported into Italy, and bought as curiosities;
and in the middle of the succeeding century we find the
Bassano family carrying on a sort of manufactory of small
pictures, recommended by their splendid colours, and
various, though low and common-place treatment. These
were dispersed through Italy, and sold at fairs as articles
of commerce, much like the Dutch and Flemish pictures
of thp same and succeeding periods. More than a cen-
tury later, we hear of the Feria—the markets for pictures,
at Cadiz and Seville, where the young Murillo sold his
wares.
I find no mention of collectors of pictures, and founders
of picture galleries, before the middle of the sixteenth cen-
tury, and then they were all princes of the sovereign houses
of Italy—the Medici, the Gonzaga, the Este, and the
Farnese families. It is true that there had previously existed
collections of works of art, if not of pictures: witness
Isabella D’Este, and her cabinet of gems and antiques at
Mantua, open to the learned and to artists, before the
time of the Medici, and before Lorenzo’s famous Acca-
demia; but she was a sovereign princess. I can find no